“1Milestone Year for Greece”, Welcomes 30m Visitors

Greece has achieved an all-time record number of visitors to the country, in the last two years the ministry has received 265 proposals for four and five start hotels.

Elena Kountora, the minister of tourism in Greece said that following a significant increase in revenues, it was estimated that the international arrivals will exceed 30 million this year, including the cruise visitors.

There has been an ongoing growth of more than 7% yearly from 26 million in 2015 to 28 million in 2016 for the fourth time in a row.

There was a double-digit growth in arrivals from every European country that included Germany, France, and Scandinavian nations. Visitors from US, Canada, Russia, Middle East and China also contributed to the increased numbers.

During the first eight months of 2017 the UK market saw a growth, with Greece showing a 6% increase in air arrivals.

This year saw the addition of more than 150 new flight routes to the European destinations that included the UK and Ireland. Further, some of the routes that were scheduled to end in October had expanded until January.

The cruise passengers for the year 2016 exceeded three million. Due to the issues in the eastern Mediterranean resulted a drop in demand for the nearby Turkey.

International Cruise lines will be reconsidering their programmes in the Mediterranean for 2017. Even though there were fewer port calls the overall cruise ships had higher occupancy for Greek destinations with an increased number of passengers as compared to last year.

The outcome of the cruise industry is expected to have a better turn out than the initial estimates.

In the coming years tour operators have expanded their portfolio in Greece and made announcements for several new projects. Investments groups from Us, Middle East, Russia and China were investing in luxury resorts in popular and new Greek destinations.