Greece Welcomes More than 1 Million Travelers in Q1

More than one million travelers visited Greece in the first three months of the year boosting travel receipts by 63.8 percent and setting the pace for the months ahead, said the Bank of Greece (BoG) this week.

More specifically, according to BoG data for the January-March period, the number of inbound travelers increased by 74.7 percent to 1,874.2 thousand up from 1,072.7 thousand in the same period in 2022.

Broken down, incoming traffic through airports increased by 64.6 percent and by 104.7 percent through road border‑crossing points.

EU arrivals rose by 51.7 percent year‑on‑year to 898.7 thousand and non-EU inbound traffic increased by 103.0 percent to 975.5 thousand.

Main source markets for Greece in Q1 were Germany with arrivals up by 4.4 percent to 158.0 thousand, France by 72.7 percent to 92.8 thousand, the UK by 61.9 percent to 148.3 thousand and the US by 129.6 percent to 86.5 thousand. The number of travelers from Russia dropped by 48.4 percent to 4.5 thousand.

Strong inbound traffic boosted travel receipts in Q1, which increased by 63.8 percent over Q1 2022 reaching 732.9 million euros compared to 760 million euros in pre-Covid 2019.

March sees more inbound travelers year‑on‑year

In March, the number of inbound travelers grew by 60.8 percent year‑on‑year to 666.1 thousand, marking a 45.1 percent year‑on‑year increase through airports and a 99.5 percent rise through road borders. Inbound traveler flows exclude cruise passenger arrivals.

BoG analysts attribute the rise to incoming travelers from the EU, up by 67.6 percent and from outside the EU (+53.9 percent).

Selecting Greece for their travels in March were the Brits, marking a 40.4 percent rise to 49.4 thousand, the Americans, up by 136.5 percent to 49.4 thousand and the Russians (+76.1 percent to 2.5 thousand).

The number of arrivals from traditional source markets Germany and France dropped in March by 5.9 percent to 52.2 thousand and 42.9 percent to 15.8 thousand, respectively.

March traveler arrivals to Greece boosted travel receipts by 45.6 percent year‑on‑year.