BoG: Greece Travel Receipts Up by 51% in January – June

Herod Atticus Odeon, Athens © GTP

Travel receipts in the first six months of the year increased by 51.0 percent and by 851.8 percent in June, said the Bank of Greece (BoG) on Monday attributing the positive trend to a 317.1 percent increase in June of inbound traveler flows.

More specifically, according to central bank provisional data, travel receipts in the January-June 2021 period rose by 51.0 percent year-on-year to 1.108 million euros generated by travelers from the EU who increased spending by 153.3 percent to 769 million euros.

However, receipts generated from non-EU travelers dropped by 24.1 percent to 325 million euros. Indicatively, incoming traveler flows fell by 20.4 percent in the six-month period.

Broken down by source markets, receipts from Germany increased by 299.5 percent year-on-year to 275 million euros, from France by 486.3 percent to 105 million euros, and from the UK by 28.4 percent to 72 million euros.

On the downside, receipts from the US fell by 29.4 percent to 43 million euros and from Russia by 72.7 percent to 3 million euros.

Looking at central bank June data, travel receipts rose by 851.8 percent year-on-year driven by receipts from EU travelers which were up by 1,208.0 percent to 558 million euros and from outside the EU up by 447.1 percent to 221 million euros against 41 million euros in June 2020.

A closer look at source markets reveals a 1,570.9 percent increase in receipts from Germany to 212 million euros, 4,773.9 percent from France to 75 million euros, by 1,838.8 percent from the UK to 56 million euros, and by 9,853.4 percent from the US to 35 million euros.

Photo © Greek Travel Pages (GTP)

The number of inbound travelers in June 2021 rose by 317.1 percent year-on-year to 1,069 thousand with the figure for travelers through airports rising by 2,845.6 percent over June 2020 and through road border-crossing points down by 0.7 percent.

In January-June period, the number of inbound travelers dropped by 20.4 percent to 1,733 thousand against 2,178 thousand in January-June 2020 with flows through airports up by 15.4 percent and via road border-crossing points down by 59.1 percent.

Based on the same data, the balance of travel services in June 2021 showed a surplus of 689 million euros up from a surplus of 39 million euros in June 2020.

In January-June 2021, the balance of travel services marked a surplus of 826 million euros up from a surplus of 256 million euros in the same period in 2020.

Meanwhile, in relative news, German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung citing central bank data referred to the positive performance of the tourism sector in Greece, which increased travel receipts 10-fold in June over the previous year after the third wave of Covid-19 subsided, it said.