Greece Sees Major 53.2% Rise in Travel Receipts in January

Photo source: Visit Greece

Greece in January saw a remarkable 53.2 percent increase in travel receipts to 232.4 million euros, according to the travel services balance announced by the Bank of Greece on Friday.

In January 2018, travel receipts in Greece had amounted to 152 million euros.

According to the data, the rise in travel receipts in January is attributed to a 40.4 percent increase in average expenditure per trip. The growth in revenue is also attributed to an increase of 9.4 percent in incoming tourist traffic – a rise recorded for the first time in the history of Greek tourism for the first month of the year – to over 660,000 travelers.

Specifically, visitor flows through Greek airports increased by 26.3 percent, while tourist traffic through road border-crossing points increased by 5.9 percent.

“We are pleased to see that our strategic planning is delivering from the start of 2019. The large increase in tourist traffic in the winter, due to the opening of new markets, has led to a 53.2 percent increase in revenue this January,” Greek Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura wrote on her twitter account, commenting on the data.

According to the Bank of Greece, the increase in travel receipts and incoming traffic is attributed to higher spending and visitor flows from both within the EU28 and outside the EU28.

Photo source: Visit Greece

During January, the number of visitors from Germany increased by 10 percent to 68,000, generating some 25 million euros in travel receipts (up by 26.7 percent) to Greece, while visitors from France increased by 46.5 percent to 11,000 and spent some 7 million euros (up by 112.1 percent). Visitors from the United Kingdom showed a 9.6 percent rise to 38,000 and receipts from British tourists increased by 65.3 percent to 16 million euros.

Turning to non-EU28 countries, the Bank of Greece said the number of visitors from Russia rose sharply to 10,000 and receipts were up by 7 million euros. The number of visitors from the United States increased by 13.6 percent to 25,000. According to the data, US tourists spent some 13 million euros (22.1 percent increase) in Greece in January.