The Bank of Greece has revealed that based on final data, January-September 2017 saw an increase of eight percent in visitors to Greece.
According to their data, the January-September period saw 26,790 visits to Greece (all 13 regions combined), and more specifically, airport visitors increased by almost 10 percent, similar to the increase in visitors through road boarder-crossing points.
Visitors from within the EU accounted for 61.9 percent, and visitors from outside of the EU accounted for 28.9 percent of total visitors.
And the most popular destinations? Well, the data suggests the six most popular regional destinations, accounting for 88.2 per cent of total visits, were:
Central Macedonia (6,413 thousand visits)
Southern Aegean (5,083 thousand)
Crete (4,152 thousand)
Attica (4,090 thousand)
Ionian Islands (2,785 thousand)
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (1,115 thousand)
The remaining regions (Thessaly, Epirus, the Peloponnese, Western Greece, the Northern Aegean, Central Greece and Western Macedonia) together accounted for 3,151 thousand overnight stays.In fact the most popular place for overnight stays was the Southern Aegean with 41,215 thousand nights.
According to the most recent figures, the total contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP was EUR32.8bn (USD36.6bn), 18.6 per cent of GDP in 2016.
Earlier this week dozens of tourism projects were among 70 large-scale investment ventures in Greece were included in the government’s “general entrepreneurship” scheme under the latest development law, passed by the economy ministry’s General Directorate for Investments and Development.