Rhodes, Kos, Kos, Chania, Corfu, Corfu, Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Mykonos and Santorini are the islands where international air arrivals have already exceeded the performance of 2019, the last record year for Greek tourism. Comparisons are made with this year, given the travel restrictions and pandemic measures of the previous two years.
According to data from the Civil Aviation Authority and Athens International Airport, processed by INSETE in the latest statistical bulletin (for August), the airport of Chania arrivals from the beginning of the year until July, amounted to 736 thousand, an increase of +80 thousand / +12.2%.
Rhodes airport recorded 1.4 million international air arrivals, with an increase of +122 thousand / +9.6% and Kos airport recorded 662 thousand international air arrivals, with an increase of +21 thousand / +3.3%.
Mykonos airport recorded an increase of +65 thousand / +24.5%, while international air arrivals reached 329 thousand and Santorini airport recorded 452 thousand arrivals with an increase of +158 thousand / +53.8%.
In Corfu, international air arrivals reached 930 thousand, an increase of +110 thousand / +13.4% and in Aktion international air arrivals reached 211 thousand, an increase of +41 thousand / +24.0%.
The trend is increasing in Zakynthos and Kefalonia where 495 thousand and 201 thousand arrivals were recorded, with an increase of +13 thousand / + 2.61 and +13 thousand / + 6.71 ttp3t respectively.
Finally, at Skiathos airport, air arrivals reached 130 thousand, recording an increase of +24 thousand / +22.9%. At the other airports, international air arrivals were lower than 60 thousand.
During the seven-month period, Athens International Airport recorded 2.9 million international air arrivals, representing a decrease of -661 thousand / 18.61 TP3T. This was followed by Thessaloniki Airport, where 1.1 million international air arrivals were recorded, representing a decrease of 237,000 / 17.91 TP3T.
Heraklion airport recorded a marginal decrease of -11 thousand /-0.6% while international air arrivals reached 1.8 million.
In July, the overall growth at airports was 9.6% and international air arrivals reached 4.2 million.
Rhodes, Kos, Chania, Chania, Corfu, Zakynthos and Kefalonia were again in positive territory, while the airports of Mykonos and Santorini were up.
But the picture is different when it comes to road arrivals. In the period January-July 2022, a decrease was recorded from all neighbouring countries compared to the corresponding period in 2019. In particular, the largest decrease in absolute terms was recorded by Bulgaria with -1.4 million /-50.3% while 1.4 million road arrivals were recorded, followed by North Macedonia with a decrease of -370 thousand /-19.5% with 1.5 million road arrivals.
The decrease from Turkey amounted to -247 thousand /-50.3% as road arrivals reached 244 thousand, while the biggest improvement was recorded from Albania which recorded a decrease of -240 thousand /-24.4% with road arrivals reaching 747 thousand.
How the revenue goes
According to the BoE's data for the six months, travel receipts decreased by -5.31TTP3T compared to the corresponding period of 2019 and stood at €5.126 billion. This development is due to the increase in receipts from residents of EU-27 countries by 6.3%, which stood at €2.981 million, while from residents of non-EU-27 countries there was a decrease of 16.8%, with receipts standing at €2.029 billion.
The feeling among tourism entrepreneurs is that both July and August went very well in terms of revenue, due to the increased tourist traffic and they expect that the results of the BoE will come out that the gap compared to 2019, when a little more than 18 billion euros had flowed into the tourist basket, will finally close. After all, the occupancy rates recorded in popular destinations were very high, even reaching the fully booked in mid-August.
