Foreign Arrivals To Greece Increase, Tourism Revenue Drops

International visitor arrivals to Greece showed positive growth during the first quarter of 2013 but revenue from tourism reported a drop, data from the Bank of Greece recently revealed.

According to the data, some one million tourists visited Greece during the January-March 2013 period as a 4.6 percent rise was recorded compared to 2012. Last year, 979,000 tourists visited Greece in the first quarter.

Despite the rise in arrivals, tourism revenue for the January-March 2013 period dropped 3.7 percent to 392.2 million euros against 407.3 million euros during the same period last year.

Russians in the lead

The data also showed that during the January-March 2013 period, the number of visitors from Russia increased by 71.2 percent and from Germany by four percent compared to 2012. However, fewer visitors were recorded from the UK (-36.8 percent), the U.S. (-7 percent) and France (-5.6 percent).

During the first quarter of 2013, tourism revenue from Russia increased by 79.5 percent.