September in Greece Winning Tourists Over from US, Germany

Tourists continue to visit Greece off-season into Sept. with the number of inbound travelers up by 6.6% and a 7.9% rise in travel receipts.

Travelers from the US and Germany supported Greece’s tourism sector in September reflecting a longer tourist season, according to data released on Thursday by the Bank of Greece (BoG).

More specifically, the number of German visitors to Greece in Sept. increased by 9.9% to 863.0 thousand with those from the US up by 10.8% to 188.8 thousand. Travel receipts for the month were up by 7.9% year-on-year driven by receipts from Germany which were up by 3.1% reaching 672.1 million euros and from the US increasing by 33.2% to 273.6 million euros. According to BoG analysts, receipts from Russia boomed in Sept. up by 114.2% to 4.0 million euros.

In total, the number of travelers visiting Greece in September (excluding cruise passengers) increased by 6.6% year-on-year to 5,483.2 thousand: up by 5.0% through airports and by 13.7% through road border-crossing points.

In the nine-month period to Sept. travel receipts grew by 4.1% year-on‑year reaching a total of 18.7 billion euros. BoG analysts attribute the rise to a 7.1% increase in receipts from EU residents as spending by travelers from other countries dropped by 2.2%.

Driving tourism-related revenues upwards in the Jan.-Sept. period were travelers from Germany generating 3,144.9 million euros in travel receipts up by 3.6% over the same period a year ago; from Italy with receipts up by 15.2% to 1,145.0 million euros; from the UK (+2.4% to 2,884.1 million euros); and the US (+6.5% to 1,253.2 million euros).

In total, 30.3 million travelers visited Greece from January to September marking a 9.3% rise over 27.7 million in 2023. Inbound traveler flows through airports rose by 10.0% and by 8.7% through road border-crossing points in the period under review.