More Israeli Travelers Seeking Greek Hotel Services in October

Hellenic Parliament, Athens, Greece. Photo © Maria Theofanopoulou

All the more Israeli travelers are booking hotels in Greece, making Israel one of Greece’s top five booking markets for the first time, according to the November bulletin released this week by INSETE, the Greek Tourism Confederation’s (SETE) research department.

More specifically, Israel entered the top 5 – at fourth spot – in October after the UK, Germany, and France, and followed by Italy.

At the same time, Greek hotels continue to hold the top position in terms of quality and services on the Global Review Index (GRI) for October, remaining in first place again with a score of 87.2 percent followed by Croatia (86 percent), and Cyprus (85.2 percent), Spain  (84.7 percent) and Italy (83.5 percent).

In terms of revenues for September, travel receipts increased by 16 percent or 393 million euros to 2.847 million euros compared to the same period in 2018, with the nine-month rise at 14.0 percent to 16.088 million euros and equal to total 2018 revenues.

International arrivals, meanwhile, also increased in October by 5.7 percent against the same month last year to 1.7 million with Athens International Airport handling the largest part of the increase.

In the 10-month period to October, Greece welcomed 20.5 million passengers, marking a 3.5 percent rise against the previous year with Athens attracting 5.2 million.

Athens international Airport Departures

As far as hotel rates are concerned, hotels in Greece and competitor  destinations were mixed with the exception of Turkey, where rates increased.

Incoming road arrivals also grew in October by 3.6 percent to 886,000.

Domestic tourism in October dropped by 2.3 percent to 698,000 arrivals compared to the same month in 2018 at 714,000 arrivals.