Tourism in Greece: Number of visitors has almost doubled in two years. 7 out of 10 use a card for their transactions

Visa has released the results of its Mediterranean Tourism Analysis, which presents data on card usage by tourists travelling to southern European countries.

According to the analysis, tourism in Greece has shown a strong recovery from the pandemic, growing by 97% compared to 2021. Based on the memorandum of cooperation signed between Visa and the Greek government in March 2022, Visa provided the Ministry of Tourism with aggregated data to help understand tourism trends and make informed decisions to attract more travelers (and more targeted visitors) and provide them with better experiences.

Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni said: “The Ministry of Tourism opens a new cycle of development with an emphasis on the qualitative characteristics of Greek tourism. The main condition in this direction is the emphasis on the real image and trends of the tourism market. The cooperation of the Ministry of Tourism with Visa is aimed at registering and summarizing all the information about the Greek tourism market and its competitive environment, contributing to the formation of a dynamic policy to solve the main problems of Greek tourism.“.

Sevi Vasileva, General Manager of Visa in Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Israel, commented: “Analysis Mediterranean tourismconducted by Visa, provides important information to the Greek Government and the Ministry of Tourism, helping to create and implement strategies to improve the visitor experience. It is important not only to attract more tourists to Greece, but also to improve their travel experience to meet the needs and expectations of modern travelers.“.

“Tourism is a key pillar of the Greek economy and Visa is ready to help both the authorities and Greek businesses maximise the benefits offered by secure digital payments,” – says the expert. 72% of transactions with foreign cards in Greece in 2023 were made at points of sale, compared to 84% in the rest of the Mediterranean, with more than half being contactless and 28% being ATM withdrawals.

The Visa Mediterranean Tourism Analysis is conducted by Visa Consulting and Analytics using data from the Visa network. The analysis looks at trends following the Covid-19 pandemic and uses data for 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The analysis covers personal transactions made in Greece using Visa cards issued abroad. The term “visitors” refers to the number of unique foreign Visa cards used to make transactions in Greece during the analysis period. The reference countries used in the study are Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta and Croatia.

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