Tourism: popular destinations strive for new records

With positive omens and new trends, this year's tourism season continues with strong momentum that experts estimate will keep international arrivals at last year's levels and even outperform.

Despite the sudden problems caused bankruptcy of the German travel agency FTI, which tourism officials say will be “limited and manageable,” early reports for the current season point to “a good picture, equal to and slightly better than 2023.”

The country's popular destinations (Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Corfu, Chalkidiki) are aiming for new records, with industry businessmen noting the existence of new tourism trends. This year in particular it is obvious trend towards longer summer season: September and October show higher demand than last year. The increase in travel outside the peak period of July to August is due to lower prices as well as better climate conditions in terms of air temperature.

In addition, a new trend that has begun to emerge since last year is tourists visiting lesser-known islands and “unexplored” mainland destinations, mainly due to better prices and fewer crowds.

At the level of initial estimates, tourism factors indicate that, after last year's historically strong performance, Greek tourism, despite geopolitical tensions and inflationary pressures in key European markets, appears to be maintaining its positive momentum. Moreover, income is estimated to record another slight increase in 2024.

Let us recall that according to the final data of the Bank of Greece, travel revenues in 2023 amounted to 20.59 billion euros (+16.5% compared to 2022), and the incoming tourist flow was more than 36 million travelers (+20.8%), including cruises liners.

However, average travel expenses showed a decrease of 3.5% compared to 2022, falling last year to €571, also due to a decrease in the average length of stay index to 6.5 nights from 7.4 nights in 2022 ( -eleven% ).

In addition, major tour operators such as TUI and Jet2.com have added more flights to popular Greek islands, also including new Greek destinations.

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