Greece at Top of Popular Destination List for Finnish Travelers

Santorini, Greece.

Greece was once again the number one travel destination for Finns, according to 2022 data released recently by the Association of Finnish Travel Industry (SMAL).

The association’s 2022 report analyzed traditional package travel figures featuring flight-based packages from Finland to international destinations sold by its members companies.

According to the report, despite the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, energy crisis and lingering Covid-19 pandemic, 2022 saw over 518,000 travel packages sold in Finland, an increase of 344 percent compared to 2021 figures, yet 41 percent behind 2019’s numbers.

The vast majority of the packages, around 86 percent, were to Europe. Among European destinations, Greece was the top destination with well over 184,000 packages sold, accounting for 41.5 percent of all travel packages to the region. The growth in travel to Greece compared to 2021 was 410 percent, although there was still a 23 percent drop compared to 2019.

Source: SMAL.

Greece ‘s popularity among Finnish tourists is also attested through its “Partner Country” title at the recently organized Matka Nordic Travel Fair in Helsinki which is one of northern Europe’s largest travel events.

Following Greece as the second favorite destination for Finns was Spain, with just under 144,000 packages. This was just over 32 percent of all packages to Europe. The Canary Islands accounted for the majority of packages to Spain amounting over 120,000 trips.

Rounding up the top 5 were Turkey (3^rd), Cyprus (4^th) and Portugal (5^th).

Other key figures from the report include:

– Long-haul destinations saw an increase of 432 percent compared to 2021 but the drop in long-haul sales was still 71 percent of the 2019 package travel volume.

– Cape Verde was the most popular long-haul destination in 2022, with around 8,800 trips, or over 35 percent of trips to the region.

– Around 3, 700 cruise packages were sold in 2022 with the majority of these being European cruises.

Founded in 1940, SMAL is a consortium of about 180 travel agencies, tour operators and other industry related companies whose total member companies’ sales amounted to over 2 billion euros in 2019, which was about 95 percent of the sector’s total sales in Finland.