Greek Tourism: Which tourists spend the most

In the first quarter of 2023, Americans were the most open handed tourists in Greece as they spent the most money, with the British being the stingiest, according to the travel balance data of the Bank of Greece.

What seems a little worrying and needs monitoring, however, is the very small increase in arrivals from Germany compared to the same period last year, a development that leads to an assessment that economic problems seem to have played their part.

It should also be noted that although travel arrivals and receipts in the first quarter of 2023 shot up compared to the corresponding period of 2022, they still fall short of the first quarter of 2019, the year of Greek tourism.

Expenses

In particular, in the first quarter of 2023, each American spent 774.5 euros, while each French spent 623.9 euros, each German only 400 euros, while the British proved to be even tighter as they spent only 370.2 euros. In March 2023, travel receipts increased by 45.6% compared to the corresponding month of 2022 and reached 267.6 million euros, while significantly falling short of March 2019 which had reached 318.5 million euros.

However, the Americans brought the most revenue as the receipts from the USA increased by 107.9% to 38.5 million euros. Also from the countries outside the EU-27, receipts from the United Kingdom showed an increase of 9.3%, which amounted to 17.1 million euros. As far as EU countries are concerned, the French recorded a 17.1% increase in their spending in our country, which reached 13.3 million euros, in contrast to the Germans, who reduced their spending by 12.0% to 23.4 million euros.

In the period January-March 2023, travel receipts showed an increase of 63.8% compared to the corresponding period in 2022 and stood at 732.9 million euros, but were slightly down from the first quarter of 2019 which was 759, 9 million euros.

Germans

The Germans in the first quarter of 2023 slowed down, with the result that travel receipts from this country decreased by 3.5% and amounted to 63.3 million euros, while, on the contrary, receipts from France increased by 136.8% and constituted to 57.9 million euros. From the countries outside the EU-27, receipts from the United Kingdom showed an increase of 35.9%, which amounted to 54.9 million euros. US receipts increased by 98.4% to €67.0 million

It is also worth noting that British tourists in the first quarter of 2023 reached 148.3 thousand (an increase of 61.9% compared to the same period last year) and are the second most populous tourist tribe in our country after the Germans who were 158 ,0 thousand (an increase of only 4.4%). In third place are the French as 92.8 thousand visited Greece (an increase of 72.7% compared to the same period last year) followed by the Americans with 86.5 thousand visitors (an increase of 126.9%).

Finally, in comparison with the first quarter of 2019, it is worth noting that arrivals from France almost doubled this year (92.8 thousand against 55.1 thousand in the first quarter of 2019) while an increase was also recorded in arrivals from Britain (148.3 thousand this year against 143.4 thousand in 2019). On the contrary, arrivals from the USA decreased this year between January and March compared to 2019 (86.5 thousand compared to 104.4 thousand in the first quarter of 2019). Arrivals from Germany also recorded a decrease (158 thousand compared to 177.4 thousand in the first quarter of 2019).