Tourism Revenue in Greece Down 90.9% in January

Greece’s travel receipts in January fell by 90.9 percent to 25 million euros, from 281 million euros the same month last year, the Bank of Greece said on Wednesday.

In January 2021, 96,000 travelers came to Greece, down by 87.9 percent compared to the corresponding month of 2020, with visitors from Germany counting for most of arrivals. Greece saw 19,000 travelers from Germany in January.

According to provisional data by the Bank of Greece, the balance of travel services in January 2021 showed a surplus of 2 million euros, compared with a surplus of 98 million euros in January 2020. During the same month, travel payments also decreased by 87.4 percent (January 2021: 23 million euros, January 2020: 183 million euros).

Receipts from major countries of origin

In January, receipts from Germany fell by 81.3 percent to 5 million euros and receipts from France decreased by 87.5 percent to 1 million euros.

Turning to non-EU27 countries, receipts from the United Kingdom fell by 96.2 percent to 1 million euros, while receipts from the United States and Russia decreased by 99.4 percent and 99 percent, respectively, to almost zero.

The fall in travel receipts resulted from the decline in inbound traveler flows and a 25.1 percent decrease in average expenditure per trip.

Inbound traveller flows

According to the data, visitor flows through Greek airports declined by 88.8 percent and arrivals through road border-crossing points fell by 89.7 percent.

The overall decrease of inbound visitors in January was due to lower visitor flows from both within the EU27 (down 83.4 percent) and outside the EU27 (down 91.9 percent).

More specifically, the number of visitors from Germany decreased by 71.4 percent to 19,000, while visitors from France fell by 71.2 percent to 3,000.

With regard to non-EU27 countries, the number of visitors from the UK fell by 92.1 percent to 6,000 and the number of visitors from the US dropped by 97.7 percent to 1,000. The number of visitors from Russia also decreased, by 97.5 percent to almost zero.