Travel receipts up by 72% in Jan. 2023

Travel receipts grew 72 percent in January 2023, totaling 224.2 million euros, up from 130.5 million euros in the corresponding month last year, the Bank of Greece (BoG) announced on Friday.

Specifically, based on provisional data, the balance of travel services in January 2023 showed a surplus of 26.3 million euros, down from a surplus of 44.0 million euros in January 2022.

Travel payments also increased by 129.0 percent (January 2023: 197.9 million, January 2022: 86.4 million). The rise in travel receipts was due to an 86.1-percent increase in inbound traveler flows, as average expenditure per trip declined by 7.6 percent. Net travel receipts offset 1.1 percent of the goods deficit and contributed 9.8 percent of total net services receipts.

Travel receipts from residents of EU27 countries increased by 23.7 percent to 95.1 million euros, while receipts from outside the EU27 grew by 141.4 percent (January 2023: 128.9 million, January 2022: 53.4 million). The rise in receipts from within the EU27 is attributed to a 31.3 percent increase in receipts from residents of euro area countries (January 2023: 80.7 million, January 2022: 61.5 million), as receipts from non-euro area residents decreased by 6.9 percent to 14.3 million. More specifically, among major euro area countries of origin, receipts from Germany rose by 13.3 percent to 22.3 million, as did receipts from France, by 168.4 percent to 12.1 million. Turning to non-EU27 countries, receipts from the United Kingdom rose by 48.3 percent to 20.2 million, while receipts from the United States increased by 10.4 percent to 8.1 million. Receipts from Russia decreased by 67.5 percent to 0.4 million.

The number of inbound travelers rose by 86.1 percent year-on-year to 635,000. Specifically, traveler flows through airports increased by 70.1 percent compared with January 2022, while traveler flows through road border-crossing points rose by 144.1 percent.