Summer lingers in Mykonos

The summer in Mykonos holds well and September continues almost like August, while Greek and foreign tourists are making reservations on the “island of winds” for October.

The most popular destination in the country together with Santorini was completely “cured” of the pandemic and recorded a repeat of 2019 this year, with rather more “stingy” prices in both accommodation and catering, for the benefit of companies in both sectors that suffered, like the rest of the country from the coronavirus.

2021 as 2019

Many Italians who each year maintain the island’s leading position as the most populous “foreign tourist tribe”, many more French this year as well as Germans and Swiss enjoyed the island’s graces according to Fraport statistics which manages Mykonos Airport.

2021 was for Mykonos a repeat of 2019 according to the president of the Hoteliers Association of the island Mrs. Maria Kousathana. The only downside to this season is that it started late, in early July. For the rest, it had nothing to envy from the best season so far for Mykonos, which was in 2019, according to the president of the hoteliers.

The valuable comparison is between the years 2021 and 2019 as compared to 2020 a lost year for Greek and international tourism, Mykonos broke all records this year.

Occupancy

Hotel occupancy in August reached almost 100% while September is going very well at the level of about 80% of the corresponding month of 2019 while many bookings at the level of 60-70% compared to 2019 exist for October. In general, there is an optimism that the traffic will increase as there are last minute bookings unless the image of the pandemic changes dramatically for the worse, both domestically and across Europe, says Ms. Kousathana.

Air arrivals

It should be noted that according to Fraport data for Mykonos, international arrivals – departures from the airport of the island amounted to 256,488 this year while in August 2019 it was 257,795 which means that a decrease of only 0.5% was recorded.

Only arrivals from abroad in August this year (we refer to direct flights from abroad) were always according to Fraport data at 116,855 compared to 121,071, recording a slight decrease of 3.4%.

Italian first

There may be some changes in total arrivals, but what remains constant is which nationality prefers Mykonos, at least based on direct international flights. Thus, both in August 2019 and this year, the Italians were the first in terms of visitors (34,223 against 53,032 in 2019). In second place this year were the French with 24,730 arrivals when in the same month of 2019 it was in third place with 15,873. Second in August 2019 were the British with 19,465 arrivals while this year they reached third place with 13,829 arrivals.

Germans and Swiss followed with 10,557 and 7,223 arrivals respectively, much more than in 2019 (5,190 Germans and 5,100 Swiss). However, as Ms. Kusathana informed us, this year also recorded an increase in the arrivals of American tourists as well as tourists from the Middle East.