The islands are the surprise of the 2023 season

Demand for travel to less popular island destinations is on the rise compared to last summer, as evidenced by domestic bookings and passenger traffic.

Saturation and price fluctuations in major tourist destinations, coupled with significant discount packages offered by airlines, have contributed to the preference of tourists for regional destinations such as Astypalaia, Karpathos, Lemnos and Leros. According to market participants, the growth of demand for these regions is constrained only by their limited infrastructure. In particular, in the first 15 days of July, on an annualized basis, the number of passengers on the islands with historically lower tourist demand, where Aegean operates, according to some estimates, increased by 15% -20%.

Naxos island

It is significant that on Naxos the number of Greek and foreign visitors increased to 80%, and on the second largest island of the Dodecanese, Karpathos, the corresponding figure reached 50%. Passenger traffic in Kefalonia, Lemnos and Leros, which attract travelers due to their more affordable cost of living, is over 40% compared to the top demand tourist destinations. Also on the list of destinations with a significant increase in passenger traffic are the islands of the Ionian Sea, such as Zakynthos, the Sporades, such as Skiathos, and the North and East Aegean, namely Ikaria, Chios and Lesvos.

Milos Island

Compared to these islands, Samos, Kitera, Milos and Paros have lower demand growth rates but higher compared to 2022, mainly due to the limited capacity of their infrastructure. On these routes, the growth rate of passenger traffic is several times higher than on such top islands as Mykonos and Santorini, and for which in the first two weeks of July, compared to the same period in 2022, the volume of passengers transported increased by 5% or more than by 15% respectively. During the first 15 weeks of July, the number of Greek and foreign tourists increased by up to 80% on Naxos and up to 50% on Karpathos.

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Despite the improvement in the performance of the two most popular destinations of the Cyclades in terms of occupancy, in June the total number of passengers served by the airports of Mykonos and Santorini decreased by 3.1% and 1.3% year on year, respectively. One of the reasons for this decline is due to the fact that in the first month of summer, flights to Mykonos and Santorini decreased by 10.2% and 7.2%, respectively.

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To boost demand, Aegean recently increased the number of seats on its flights to Sitia, Skyros and Lemnos and offered more attractive fares. This has reportedly resulted in an increase in demand of over 130% for Sitia and Skyros and over 45% for Limnos.

Completing the interconnection of destinations and diffusion of visitors in 13 regions of the country, as well as further spatial and temporal extension of the tourist season, is one of the main tasks of the new leadership of the Ministry of Tourism under the leadership of Olga Kefalogianni. Today, according to a study by the Institute of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (INSETE), 83.5% of tourists visit five regions – the South Aegean, Attica, Central Macedonia, Crete and the Ionian Islands.

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