Greece’s tourism sector is evolving into a strong pillar of economic growth as reflected by a 4.4% increase in tourism revenue to 1 billion euros in the first three months of the year and a 5.4% rise in international arrivals.
According to provisional data released by the Bank of Greece (BoG) on Thursday, travel receipts came to 1 billion euros in the first quarter (Q1) of the year driven by a 0.3% rise in receipts from EU residents and an 8.5% increase by non-EU residents.
From January to March, Greece welcomed a total of 2,459.0 thousand incoming travelers up by 5.4% over Q1 2024. In the period under review, the number of EU travelers dropped by 0.7% year-on-year while arrivals from non-EU countries rose by 11.7%.
Source markets in Q1 included Germany, with the number of travelers to Greece up by 19.6%, Italy (+21.4%), the UK (+41.8%), and the US (+16.2%).
In March, travel receipts increased by 5.1% to 473.4 million euros, up from 450.5 million euros in March 2024 with inbound traveler flows up by 5.4% in both March and Q1.
BoG analysts attribute the March increase to a 5.4% rise in inbound traveler flows, while average expenditure per trip declined by 0.6%. Driving revenues upwards in March were mostly travelers from Italy with receipts up by 28.1%. On the down side, travel receipts dropped for Germany (-27.1%), France (-13.2%), the UK (-2.7%), US (-29.8%), and Russia (-74.9%).
Overall in 2024, Greece welcomed 40.7 million tourists who generated 21.6 billion euros in tourism-related revenues.
Source: tovima.com
