Greece Aiming for €20bn in Tourism Revenues this Year

Greece’s tourism industry is one step closer to recovering fully this year with a growing number of international arrivals set to generate an estimated 20 billion euros by the end of 2022 outdoing pre-Covid revenues.

Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias confirmed the news this week saying that he expected arrivals and revenues to break pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Kikilias said Greece was expecting more than 1 million international visitors per week during “an unprecedented August”.

“We’re aiming for record revenue… we will surpass 2019,” he said.

Based on tourist flows so far, bookings and occupancy levels, Greek authorities are forecasting a 10 percent rise over 2019 levels when revenues reached 18.17 billion euros.

Indicative of the unprecedented demand for Greece this year, travel-related receipts increased by 342 percent in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the corresponding period in 2019, with inbound travel traffic up by 295 percent.

The first week of August, which is the month Greeks traditionally go on holiday, Mykonos, Santorini, Naxos, Andros, Paros, Milos, Corfu, Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Halkidiki, and parts of Evia reported 95 to 100 percent occupancy levels.

Most of the travelers to Greece this year are from the UK, US, France, Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Israel, Belgium, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Poland.

The tourism ministry and sector professionals are expecting tourist flows to continue into September and October with strong demand for Santorini, Rhodes, the Saronic islands, Corfu, Athens and the Athenian Riviera. The ministry is also counting on mostly senior travelers from Northern Europe to visit in the coming months choosing to holiday in warmer Greece this winter.