Over 32.7 million tourists visited Greece last year, resulting in roughly €20.5 billion in income.

According to data from the Bank of Greece, this represents a 15.7 per cent increase from 2022 and an overall amount of €20.4595 billion.

A big factor in this is the increase in income from residents of countries in the European Union, which came to €11.1583 million, as well as the increase of tourists from non-EU nations, coming to €8.591 billion.

A significant amount of the latter amount is also attributed to the expenses of the reportedly tens of thousands of Greek Australians who visited the country last year.

The income from residents of countries from the euro zone came to €9.0589 billion, an increase of 12.4 per cent, while the revenue from residents of EU countries outside the euro zone showed an increase of 7.8 per cent and amounted to €2.099 billion.

German visitors contributed €3.563 billion in income, an increase of 9.5 per cent, and French tourists amounted to €1.425 billion, an increase of 11.6 per cent.

From non-EU countries, the United Kingdom contributed €3.307 billion (5.8 per cent increase) and the United States contributed to €1.367 billion (a whopping 14.0% increase).

The income from Russia understandably decreased by 20.8 per cent and amounted to €32.8 million.

In terms of travel traffic there was an increase of 17.6 per cent to 32.7 million travellers in comparison to the 27.8 million travellers in 2022.

Specifically, travel traffic through airports saw an increase of 12.7 per cent while travel through road border stations increased by 34.9 per cent.

Travel traffic from EU countries came to 19.65 million travellers, an increase of 15.6 per cent compared to 2022, while travel traffic from non-EU nations increased by 20.8 per cent and came to 13.01 million travellers.

Travel traffic from countries in the euro zone increased by 11.5 per cent as did traffic from outside the euro zone area, which went up by 24.4 per cent.

Travel traffic from Germany rose by 9.5 per cent and reached 4.7 million travellers, while travel traffic from France increase by 4.2 per cent and came to 1.831 million travellers.

Regarding countries outside the EU, travel traffic from the UK increased by 2.4 per cent to 4.5 million travellers and it increased in the US by 29.2 per cent to 1.4 million travellers.

In addition to that, travel traffic from Russia decreased by 1.0 per cent and amounted to 35.7 thousand travellers.

Greece receives 8.4 ranking for visitor’s satisfaction

“The increase in tourist traffic in Athens has not affected the satisfaction of the tourist experience. Conversely, tourist satisfaction has increased over the past ten years from a low score of 7.7 in 2017 to 8.4 in 2022 and 2023.”

This statement is the central conclusion of the annual survey carried out by the Athens – Attica & Argosaronic Hotel Association in collaboration with GBR Consulting, which has recorded for more than 19 years the opinion of visitors about Athens – Attica as a tourist destination.

2023 was a record year for tourism in Athens with more than seven million international non-resident arrivals at Athens’ airport, up from 6.4 million in 2019 (+10%) and more than double compared to ten years, when 3,4 million tourist arrivals were recorded in 2014.

The archaeological sites of Athens, with the chief attraction of the Acropolis, featured record levels of visitors in 2023, showing the everlasting interest in the country’s culture.

In a special event by the association, it was stated that the number of hotels and hotel rooms in Attica have increased by 5 per cent and 9 per cent respectively in the last decade, while, based on the data by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (ΞΕΕ/ΙΤΕΠ) until 2023, significant growth was noted in the Central Sector of Athens with 26 per cent and 21 per cent respectively.

The largest increases were recorded in the 4- and 5-star hotels, while 3 star hotels increased in number of units but remained fairly stable in their number of rooms.

In the meantime, the market share of 1- and 2-star hotels decreased.

The short-term rental market has grown over the past decade to 14,000 active units in 2023 in the CBD compared to the 18,000 hotel rooms in the same area.

As a result, occupancy in 2023 has not fully recovered to the 2019 levels with it being 1.5 per cent lower.

Room rates (ADR) improved significantly by 29 per cent and thus Revenue per Available Room/ RevPAR improved by 27.1 per cent in 2023 compared to 2019.

The negative findings of the survey include the results regarding issues of safety and public cleanliness, where the satisfaction of tourists has decreased to a rating of 7.4 and 6.4 respectively, while the evaluation regarding the state of the squares and sidewalks has remained stable at 6.9.

It is worth noting that these ratings are an average and depend largely on where the hotel is located.

Some areas in the CBD of Athens have serious problems and need immediate action to be taken to improve it such as safety, cleanliness, and sidewalks, as Athens’ hoteliers said with one voice.

Source: AMNA