Greece’s 9-month Tourism Revenues Down by 5.5%

Revenue from Greece’s travel services dropped by 703 million euros in the first nine months of the year with the travel trade balance recording a 7.1 percent decline at 10.472 billion euros against 11.269 billion euros in 2015, according to tentative data released by the Bank of Greece this week.

The central bank attributes the results to dwindling travel receipts down by 5.5 percent and the increase by 6.2 percent — or 94 million euros — in travel payments. Travel receipts took a dive due to reduced average spending per trip by 9.3 percent despite the 3.5 percent increase in incoming travel.

Travel receipts shrank to 12.08 billion euros between January and September down from 12.78 billion a year earlier due to a 2.8 percent decline in receipts from EU-28 travelers, and 13.5 percent reduction from non-EU28 residents.

At the same time, incoming traffic increased by 3.5 percent in the first nine months of 2016 at 21,345 million travelers against 20,617 million in the same period last year. September also saw a rise of 13.7 percent in traffic despite reluctant spending, which inched up by 2.3 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, Spain and Cyprus are emerging stronger than ever recording increased annual revenues by 6.3 percent and  13.6 percent, respectively.