American interest in Greece this year has skyrocketed to unexpectedly high levels, forcing major airlines to adjust their schedules to meet demand.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that round-trip requests for travel app Hopper rose 75%, while VIP vacation agency Virtuoso recorded a 225% increase in new hotel bookings across Greece. In fact, booking began in March, even before Greece first announced it would be hosting American tourists on April 19. It was then that Emirates announced that it would link Newark to Athens, followed by announcements from cruise operators who said they would be sailing the Greek seas from June.
Apparently this was just the beginning. Bloomberg quoted Paul Tumpovski of Skylark technology agency:
“Greece is in the foreground for every American. There is no doubt that, being the first to open, they are going to take over the business in the first phase in the summer, because flights are unreliable everywhere. All major carriers now fly to Athens and you can bet the big airlines will reroute their wide-body aircraft as soon as they can. ”
The demand for Greece from the United States this summer is such that there will be at least seven flights a day between the two countries in August, operated by Emirates, Delta, United and American Airlines.
Tickets to Greece also fell, with Bloomberg citing Hopper as reporting 25% savings on round-trip tickets from the US compared to 2019 prices. Early booking will provide round-trip tickets for about $ 800, Bloomberg reported, instead of the $ 1080 that was common before the pandemic.
The US is also optimistic about vaccination progress in Greece. The priority given to adult islanders means that they will all be vaccinated by the end of June.
Unless the pandemic comes as another surprise, US guests are set to support Greek tourism, especially in Athens. Americans are among the highest spending per capita visitors, at € 1,008 in 2019, up 78.8% from the € 564 average for tourists from around the world.
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