Northern Greece Breaks Record in Tourist Arrivals by Road

Tourists from Bulgaria led the new road arrival record in Northern Greece marking a  31.6 percent rise over 2022 and reflecting a strong comeback for the region.

More specifically, according to the latest bulletin by INSETE, the Greek Tourism Confederation’s (SETE) research body, in the 11 months to November 2023, Northern Greece welcomed 9.9 million tourist arrivals by road compared to 7.6 million in the same period last year. Compared to pre-pandemic 2019 (11.8 million), however, road arrivals were still down by 15.37 percent.

Greece’s border points also reported increases with the Promachonas check point marking a 76.9 percent rise over 2022 and 2.6 million arrivals, Evzones check point welcoming 2.2 million road arrivals and Kipi 896,000 arrivals.

Leading markets driving road arrivals to Greece in January-November 2023 were Bulgaria, with the number of arrivals up by 53.3 percent to 4.3 million, Turkey (+50.8 percent to 1.1 million), North Macedonia (+12.7 percent to 3.0 million), and Albania (+14.0 percent to 1.6 million).

Overall, from January to November 2023, Greece welcomed 33.4 million international arrivals: 23.5 million by air and 9.9 million via road.