June Tourist Traffic to South Aegean Islands Up by 13% Over 2019

Greece’s South Aegean Region, which includes popular islands such as Rhodes, Kos, Santorini, Mykonos and Karpathos, exceeded pre-Covid-19 levels in June by 13 percent, the South Aegean Tourism Initiative (SATI) announced this week.

More specifically, citing Fraport Greece and Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) data for the first 26 days of June, SATI said 4,898 planes touched down at the South Aegean Region’s five main airports – those of as Rhodes, Kos, Santorini, Mykonos and Karpathos – transporting 771,941 passengers.

During peak days, a plane landed every five minutes, indicative of the demand for the region, said SATI.

In this period 376,415,042 travelers went to Rhodes, 182,410 to Kos, 114,873 to Santorini, 83,581 to Mykonos, and 14,662 to Karpathos.

So far, 1,700,000 people have visited the region’s islands of which 1,550,059 on direct flights reflecting a strong demand for the Cyclades and Dodecanese.

The number of arrivals at five of the region’s key airports in June exceeded by 13 percent the same month’s performance in 2019 as well as April 2019 levels by 13 percent and May levels by 5 percent.

Big gainers in June were Rhodes (+8 percent), Kos (+3 percent), Mykonos (+22 percent), and Santorini (+49 percent).

An initiative of South Aegean Region Governor George Hatzimarkos, the South Aegean Tourism Initiative consists of tourism, trade and hospitality professionals and their relevant associations and chambers.