Stronger Spending Drives Up January-April Travel Receipts for Greece 

Photo: GTP

The balance of travel services for the January-April period showed a surplus of 412 million euros, up from a surplus of 336 million euros in the same period last year driven by a 22.8 percent (or 241 million euro) rise in travel receipts, said the Bank of Greece this week.

For April, the balance of travel services showed a surplus of 200 million euros against a surplus of 209 million euros in the same month in 2018.

According to provisional data released by the central bank, travel receipts came to 1,297 million euros in the four-month period, up by 22.8 percent against 2018 and driven in large part by an 8.5 percent rise in receipts from EU residents at 694 million euros and by a 48.1 percent increase in receipts from non-EU travelers at 566 million euros.

Stronger travel receipts are attributed to a 22.6 percent increase in average spending per trip.

Travel receipts in April, meanwhile, also rose by 6.9 percent year-on-year to 537 million euros, from 503 million euros in April 2018, reflecting a 20.2 percent increase in average expenditure per trip since inbound traveler flows decreased by 11.3 percent.

Receipts from non-EU travelers were up by 30.4 percent to 209 million euros against 160 million in the same month in 2018. Receipts from EU residents declined by 5.4 percent to 296 million euros.

Delphi, Greece. Photo: GTP

In terms of source markets, receipts from Germany dropped by 34.5 percent to 55 million euros, from France by 21.2 percent to 41 million euros and from the UK by 0.8 percent to 40 million euros. At the same time, receipts from the US increased by 3.4 percent to 36 million euros, but dropped for Russia by 46.7 percent to 4 million euros.

Meanwhile, inbound traveler flows in April declined by 11.3 percent year-on-year to 982,000 – down by 1.1 percent through airports and by 30.4 percent through road border-crossing points.

In January-April 2019, inbound traffic increased by 0.5 percent year-on-year to 2,918,000 against 2,903,000 in the same period last year with airport flows up by 10.8 percent but road border-crossing points traffic down by 13.4 percent.