Eurostat – Greece: European Year of Tourism in Employment and Contribution to GDP

Greece is the country of the European Union ( ) with the highest rate of employment in accommodation services and , but with the high rate of contribution of this sector to GDP according to a statistical article published by Eurostat. However, the extremely large proportion of tourism workers in total employment seems to have a disproportionately small impact on GDP in relation to other EU member countries. The European Statistical Office, which collected and analysed data from 2021, estimates that Greece with 19.6% of the total, is by far the first country whose employment is oriented to the branches of residence and focus, with Cyprus following 13.5% and Spain with 9.5% while at the lowest levels of the contribution rate of the above sectors in the business economy are 2.8% Poland, 3.3% Slovakia and 3.9% Finland. In addition, it should be noted that in 2021 it was the year of pandemic and lockdown, where tourism and focus had “stood” with Greece “streaking gas” in the next period with the lifting of restrictions. Thus, in absolute numbers of companies and workers, throughout the EU as in Greece, there is a rapid increase in 2022, although Eurostat does not provide an overall analysis because the value added data is missing. The added value Another first is recorded by Greece in another area, in that of the added value that its economy derives from the areas of accommodation and focus. And there, the highest contribution was recorded in Greece (6.5% of value added to the business economy) followed by Cyprus (6%) and Croatia (5.4%). The lowest rates were recorded in Slovakia (0.8%), the Czech Republic (1%) and Poland and the Netherlands (both 1.2%). However, although Greece also has the highest percentage of value gained in relation to the economy as a whole, the “slip” that separates the “space” (the number of workers and businesses) occupied by accommodation and focus on its economy, with the value it eventually manages to extract from it (19.6% to 6.5%) is typical. In absolute numbers, in Greece in 2021 the companies employed in the industry in 2021 were 106,072, with 633,882 employees yielding a net turnover of 11,540. 210,000 euros. By comparison, that same year, France obtained a turnover of 82,338. EUR 050,000, although in employment rate at accommodation/focus was only 7th. Overall, at EU level in 2021, there were 1.9 million enterprises in the EU housing and focus services sector, representing 6.1% of all businesses operating in the business economy. The industry employed 9.9 million people, produced EUR 203.6 billion in added value and accumulated a net turnover of EUR 440 billion in 2021. Therefore, the industry contributed 6.3% of those employed in the business economy in 2021 and represented 2.2% of its added value.