BoG: Arrivals to Greece Up in Jan-April, Average Spending Per Trip Drops

Tourists to Greece appear to spending less despite an increase in arrivals in the first four months of the year by 52.5 percent, found data released by the Bank of Greece (BoG) this week.

Average spending per trip dropped by 8.4 percent in April to 527 euros from 576 euros last year and by 9.6 percent in the January-April period to 447 euros from 494 euros in 2022.

Indicatively, travelers from Germany, one of Greece’s main source markets, are cutting holiday costs. Despite an 18.7 percent increase in arrivals in the January-April period, there was no increase in travel receipts which came to 180.7 million euros  for the four-month period. Average spending  by German tourists visiting Greece dropped to 505.1 euros from 599.7 euros last year.

At the same time, French traveler spending increased by 36.6 percent to 127.0 million euros. Travel receipts from the UK grew by 18.0 percent to 136.9 million euros and from the US by 93.9 percent to 138.1 million euros. Receipts by Russian visitors declined by 47.0 percent to 4.0 million euros in the four months.

Travel receipts on the up

Overall, travel receipts in the January-April period came to 1,494.0 million euros, up by 38.0 percent over the same period in 2022 driven by a 52.5 percent rise in inbound travelers to 3,246.8 thousand compared to 2,128.7 thousand in January-April 2022. Traveler flows through airports grew by 40.7 percent and by 88.0 percent through road border-crossing points.

Travel receipts in April grew by 19.9 percent year-on-year generated by a 30.0 percent rise in traveler flows to 1,372.6 thousand: up by 19.9 percent through airports over April 2022 and by 64.3 percent through road border-crossing points.

“This is good news reflecting the dynamics of tourism and its strong impact on society and the economy. But we cannot ignore the challenges of this strong upward trend. Without strategy, destination management, infrastructure improvement, product enrichment and modern promotion, we risk falling victims to our success,” said former Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) president, Yiannis Retsos, adding that “a destination is only good for its visitors when it is good for its residents”.

More than one million travelers visited Greece in the first quarter of 2023 boosting travel receipts by 63.8 percent, closer to pre-pandemic 2019 levels, at 732.9 million euros compared to 760 million euros.