Tourists reduce travel spending

Visitors to Greece were more “tight” in their travel expenses this year compared to the same time last year.
This is according to data released by the Bank of Greece.
There was a 3.1% decrease in average spending per trip in the six months January-June 2024, compared to the corresponding six months of 2023.
Whilst visitors may not have spent as much as they did last year, actual travel receipts increased due to the increase in the number of visitors.
Overall, travel receipts increased by 7.7% in June 2024 alone and by 12.2% in the full period January-June.
In terms of inbound travel increased by 8.8% in June 2024 and by 15.5% in the January-June 2024 period.
This trend is not isolated to just Greece, it can in fact be observed throughout Europe in 2024.
Travellers are reducing the expenses they incur when travelling, since they are under financial pressure, but they are not willing to stop travelling.

Italians on top

The data is particularly interesting in terms of showing the differences in various nationalities of tourists visiting Greece.
Receipts from Germany increased by 7.4% to €1,223.3 million.
Inflows from Germany increased by 2.5% to €1,223.7 million, as did those from France, by 2.5% to €445.7 million.
Imports from Greece increased by 5.7 % to €5457.7 million.
Receipts from Italy were up by a staggering 48.8% to €329 million.

Among the other countries, receipts from the UK rose by 19.9% to €1.008.6 million.
Whilst receipts from the United States increased by only 1.0% this actually represented €540.1 million.
There was a sharp drop in receipts from Russia, which fell by an enormous 70.1% to €5.2 million.

Finally, in terms of travel, Germany recorded an increase of 13.6% to 1,766.2 thousand arrivals and France recorded an increase of 5.6% to 676.1 thousand travellers.
Travel from Italy also increased by 39.1%, reaching 588.6 thousand visitors.
The number of travellers from the UK increased by 3.5% to 371.6 thousand, whilst travellers from the United States increased by 9.5% to 578.4 thousand travellers.
Russia´s decrease in stats continued in terms of traveller numbers with a 58.6% decrease to 5.5 thousand
travellers.