Record investments of €1.5 billion are reshaping Greece’s tourism industry through green and digital transformation. Yet behind the strong performance lies a widening divide, as luxury hotels expand while small and medium-sized businesses struggle to keep pace with rising costs, labor shortages, and changing market dynamics.
Tourism contributed 21% to Greece’s GDP in 2025; performance this year hinges on Middle East developments, traveler income, and seasonal extensions.
February air seat growth and Jet2’s 2026 expansion signal resilience—but also backstage political calculations
Over 68 million travelers in the first nine months of 2025 – soaring flights and revenues.
Vice President of the Athens Chamber of Commerce highlights booming tourism and calls for fairer trade regulation on imports from Asia.
Data from ITB Berlin highlights Crete and Rhodes as the top-performing destinations, maintaining their strong appeal among European travelers with double-digit booking increases.
Spain, France, Italy and Germany lead the way - In Greece, 84% of all overnight stays are made by foreign visitors and more than three quarters by hotels
According to official SETE data, arrivals in 2023 exceeded 36 million, while in 2022, they reached approximately 30 million (this includes the number of cruise tourists).
The 15,000 Russian tourists who visited this year spent around 1,000 euros per capita, totaling 15.2 million euros.
As Greece gears up for what promises to be a record-breaking year in tourism arrivals and receipts, the industry faces an unprecedented challenge with a staggering 80,000 job vacancies at the onset of the season.
The five major markets of inbound tourism to Greece, Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and the USA, contributed a total of €8.9 billion for 2023 to the Greek tourism industry, with German travelers taking the lion’s share (€2.9 billion).
The new national strategy for tourism introduces policies for the sustainable development and enrichment of the tourism product with a new approach and new tools, including the innovation and upgrading of tourism education.
The 5th Greek Summit "Greek Tourism, a National Affair!" was held with great success on December 5 in Athens, Greece. Leading government and opposition party representatives, members of the political leadership and society
Bank of Greece (BoG) data shows travel receipts of 17.91 billion euros for the first three quarters of the year
Balance of Payments data from the Bank of Greece confirms 2023 is record year
Specifically, tourism receipts are estimated at 14.6 billion euros in the period January – August 2023, compared to 13.22 billion in the last year before the pandemic. Especially for August, revenues were 4.35 billion euros, compared to 4.1 billion in 2019 with the growth rate limited to 6%.
May this year was also better than the corresponding month in 2022 and only slightly better than 2019
In the first quarter of 2023, Americans were the most open handed tourists in Greece as they spent the most money, with the British being the stingiest, according to the travel balance data of the Bank of Greece.
We would like to hope that the indications that exist for this year's tourist season will be verified, said the president of the Union of Cruise Ship Owners and Shipping Agencies, George Koumbenas
2022 - The great return of Greek tourism
The 2022 budget forecasts revenues of 15 billion euros from tourism
