Report Sees Rising US Demand for Greece this Summer 

As part of a growing trend by Americans for travel to Europe this summer, demand for Greece seems to be rising, said travel analytics firm ForwardKeys this week.

According to air ticketing data examined by ForwardKeys analysts, European destinations are set to see their first long-haul visitors from the US since 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak.

The travel analytics firm found that earlier announcements of border re-openings played a decisive role in demand as in the cases of Greece and Portugal last year.

“The ticketing data is showing some interesting tips for hoteliers and tourism organizations to seize this summer in Croatia and Greece,” said Luis Millan, market research manager ForwardKeys.

“Not only are US travelers traveling in pairs or more, but the average length of stay is up from 15 days in 2019 to 24 percent in 2021,” he added.

This year, Croatia together with Iceland announced that they would be welcoming vaccinated travelers. After the announcement, Croatia saw a peak in demand from the US with Dubrovnik getting a 34 percent share of total international travelers, followed by Zagreb (31 percent), and the coastal town of Split (31 percent).

Millan went on to add that there is also “more high-class travel happening this year”, compared to 2019 particularly the case for US travelers to EU countries.

This is demonstrated, he said, by a 5.8 percent rise in the share of Economy Premium and Business class tickets for all international tickets to EU. The percentage rises to 7.1 for US vacationers. 

Additionally, holidaymakers appear to be traveling in numbers with data pointing to couples and families being the main markets traveling this summer, mainly to Croatia from the US.

At the top of the EU destination list for American travelers so far this year is Italy. 

France is also up there with “25.3 percent of tickets issued from the US for high-class cabins, which is an increase by 9.4 percentage points” said Millan.

Italy and France are still not accepting fully vaccinated travelers, but ForwardKeys analysts expect an increase in demand once these countries do so, like Greece and Croatia before them.