INSETE: Over 13m Tourists Visited Greece So Far This Year

More than 13 million people visited Greece by air and road through to September generating until August 6.5 billion euros, according to data released this week by INSETE, the Greek Tourism Confederation’s (SETE) research body.

More specifically, Greece recorded 10.0 million international air arrivals in the January-September 2021 period compared to 18.8 million in pre-Covid 2019, marking a 46.7 percent decline.

Meanwhile, tourism revenue this year to August dropped by 50.2 percent over the same period in 2019 to 6.5 billion euros attributed to a 37.5 percent drop in spending by EU nationals and a 65.8 percent decline by non-EU travelers.

Looking at arrivals by road from January to September this year, Greece welcomed 3.3 million compared to 10.3 million arrivals in the given period in 2019 marking a 67.6 percent decline with the largest drop in incoming travelers from Bulgaria down by 69.4 percent.

In the first nine months of 2021, international arrivals dropped by 50.2 percent at Athens International Airport, by 39.5 percent at Herakilon Airport, by 45.3 percent at Rhodes Airport, and by 59.2 percent at Thessaloniki Airport.

Airports which saw the greatest improvement in arrival figures were those of Santorini with 412 thousand arrivals in the nine months and Mykonos with 342 thousand.

In terms of recovery rates, the Cyclades recorded the highest rate with 754 thousand international arrivals in the nine-month period while the Dodecanese islands airports handled 1.8 million international arrivals down by 46.1 percent.

Based on the findings, INSETE analysts are echoing tourism ministry projections that Greece will meet its target of recovering 50 percent of 2019 arrivals and receipts. Earlier this week, Tourism Minister Vasilis Kikilias said said he expected total 2021 revenues to reach 12 billion euros.