ETC: Air Traffic to Greece Driving Europe’s Tourism

Photo by Antony Kitsopoulos

Greece was one of the top countries in Europe to attract international travelers, driving the continent’s tourism rebound, found the latest quarterly report (Q3) released by the European Travel Commission (ETC).

Greece has so far supported the continent’s tourism recovery this year managing to exceed pre-Covid 2019 arrival figures by 7 percent while approximately 65 percent of reporting destinations are still below pre-pandemic figures.

Additionally, Greece was one of five countries to see air traffic volumes exceed 2019 levels making it one of the best-performing countries in Europe with the strongest recovery. At the same time, Greece continues to be in the Top 5 countries in terms of flight volumes.

Popular summer destinations such as Greece, Portugal, and Cyprus are now seeing the number of flights exceed those of 2019, but they remain a minority, with three quarters of countries still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels, according to the ETC.

In addition to Greece, Europe’s recovery was mostly driven by Southern European and Mediterranean destinations, including Serbia (+15 percent), Montenegro (+14 percent), Portugal (+11 percent), Malta (+7 percent), and non-EU country Turkey (+8 percent).

Countries still slow to recover are those reliant on Russian travelers such as Estonia, still down by 27 percent on 2019 levels, Latvia (-30 percent), and Lithuania (-33 percent).

ETC: Europe’s tourism displays a strong rebound, but remains uneven across the regions

Foreign visits to European destinations 2023 Year-to-Date. Source: ETC

Overall, international tourist arrivals to Europe were just 3.2 percent below 2019 levels and nights down by 1.3 percent for the January-September period.

The ETC said it expects full tourism recovery in terms of international arrivals in 2024, a year earlier than expected, despite persistent inflation and geopolitical instability. European airports however are close to reaching a complete recovery in passenger demand with passenger traffic down by 3.4 percent over the same period in 2019.

The rebound is being driven by intra-European travel and the influx of US arrivals benefitting from favorable exchange rates.

“Despite persistent economic and geopolitical challenges, it is encouraging to observe the ongoing rebound of European tourism. However, we must acknowledge that the true measure of tourism success extends beyond the number of visitors and nights spent at a destination. It is essential to also consider and evaluate its impact on nature, local businesses, and the resident population,” said ETC President Miguel Sanz.

Overall the report found that foreign arrivals to Europe are expected to continue recovering through to the end of 2023, reaching 91 percent of pre-pandemic levels for the whole year.

Identifying trends, the ETC report found that tourists prefer affordability and off-peak travel, continue to prioritize travel spending, place greater emphasis on value for money and ways to lower the overall cost of their holiday, book transportation and accommodation well in advance, opt for package holidays, while Europeans are considering a wider range of destinations compared to before Covid.