Tourism heads for record season
Greece recording new historical highs in a period that is usually the weakest quarter
Greek tourism showed one of the strongest growth rates worldwide during the first quarter of this year, significantly surpassing even the record levels of the first quarter of 2019. While important international destinations, especially in the American continent and Asia, but also Europe, have not yet fully recovered the levels of arrivals of the pre-pandemic period, Greece is recording new historical highs and indeed in a period of the year that is nothing more than the weakest quarter of the year for tourism.
Non-resident traveler arrivals in Greece increased by 24.5% and related receipts by 28.2% compared to the first quarter of 2023, according to data from the Bank of Greece. In particular, receipts amounted to 942 million euros compared to €746.5 million in the first quarter of 2019 and €735 million in the corresponding period of 2023.
In March alone the arrivals of non-resident travelers increased by 31.2% and the relative receipts by 34.2% to €372.3 million, compared to the same month of 2023 (€277.5 million). With these data, Greek tourism appears at approximately 120% of its size during the first quarter of 2019, a performance significantly higher than that recorded by the majority of destinations worldwide.
However, the champions in the development of tourism based on arrivals during the first quarter of this year compared to the corresponding period of 2019 were Qatar (+177% compared to the first quarter of 2019), Albania (+121%), Saudi Arabia (+98%), Tanzania (+53%), Curacao (+45%), Serbia (+43%), Turks and Caicos Islands (+42%), Guatemala (+41%) and Bulgaria (+38%). Many of these destinations are either emerging new destinations, such as Albania, or destinations that have lagged far behind in their recovery from the pandemic in previous years.
According to the same data, published on Tuesday by the United Nations Tourism Organization (UN Tourism), international tourist arrivals recovered to just 97% of pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2024. A performance corresponding to just over 285 million. tourists who traveled internationally from January to March 2024.
