Hamas-Israel War Expected to Impact Greece’s Tourism Sector

Knossos, Crete. Photo source: Wikimedia.

The Hamas-Israel war, which broke out this week after Hamas launched surprise attacks, is expected to take a toll on Greece’s tourism industry.

According to analysts interviewed by business website euro2day, mostly affected will be tourism to the islands of Rhodes, Kos and Crete, and the cruise sector.

Cruise lines are changing itineraries and suspending calls to ports in Israel and Egypt leading to disruption for travelers, travel agencies and tour operators as well as affecting company planning for 2024. Major airlines have also canceled flights to Tel Aviv this week.

At the same time, Greece is repatriating Israeli travelers currently in Greece and bringing Greeks back from Israel. According to the report, approximately 1,500 Israelis are currently on the Greek islands.

Greece among Top 3 most preferred destinations for Israelis

Athens International Airport data recently shoed that Greece was among the Top 3 most preferred destinations for Israeli travelers this year.

Indicative of the demand for Greece, in the January-August period, inbound traffic from Israel accounted for the majority of long-haul market arrivals with the number of travelers from Tel Aviv exceeding those from New York.

Tourists exploring Rhodes. Photo by Shinjan Bhattacharya on Unsplash.

In the nine months to September, passenger traffic to and from Israel exceeded 624,000, marking a 65 percent rise over the same period in 2019.

According to data, in the 2019-2022 period, inbound traffic from Israel grew by 43.5 percent from 341 thousand in 2019 to 490 thousand in 2022. Overnight stays rose by 58.4 percent to 2.7 million in 2022 from 1.7 million in 2019, and tourism-related revenues grew by 51.1 percent to 311 million euros. Travelers from Israel on average spent more in 2022 at 633.9 euros and 117.1 euros per night stay.