According to statements by the Minister of the euro2day, it appears that the year will close with approximately 27,5 million. foreign visitors, including cruise passengers. The assessment is based on the rise of air arrivals, the increase of road tourism for the last time and the rise of the cruise passenger by 18%.
The same assessment appears to be converging now, and the president of SETE Andreas Andreadis after the increase by 200,000 of foreign visitors who came to our drive in September. According to the data of SETE Intelligence in September they drove in Greece 1.540.000 visitors compared 1.340.000 the corresponding month of 2015. As stated, yes, most of the additional tourists (to 100,000 tourists ) arrived in Greece through the gate of the Bastion (Greek / Bulgarian border). In the remaining entry gates, pointed out, there was an increase of 10% -15%.
Mr. Andreadis noted that if the increase of foreign visitors move to the level of 6%-7% it is estimated that the total number of foreign tourists in Greece this year will reach 25 million. or 27,5 million. including cruise passengers. Sizes that move in the levels of the original objectives that were set for this year.
It seems that the train is now well on the rails”, as after the very difficult last year (Russian embargo, referendum, capital controls), the Greek tourism for the 2nd streak year achieves new all-time record in an even more unfavorable environment for the Eastern Mediterranean compared to last year. Despite the issues with terrorism faced by all the major european markets, the huge issue of refugees, which affected the islands of the Aegean sea and the coup d’état in neighbouring Turkey, the country managed to cope with, and tourism to save the economy of the country.
Of course, nothing happened because of the circumstances or fortune, the extension of the tourist season as the end of Autumn in all the popular tourist destinations of Greece (Crete, Halkidiki, Rhodes, Kos, Corfu, Zakynthos), the opening of new destination of greece (Peloponnese, Sporades, Thessaly, Northern Greece) and new tourism markets (USA, China, New york.Korea, Romania, the Arab Countries etc), but also the recovery of traditional markets for Greek tourism targeted last minute campaigns (Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Nordic Countries etc) were just a few of the actions of the Ministry of Tourism that contributed to the year’s success and puts a solid basis for 2017.
Tourism: With a new record of 27,5 million. visitors will be closed in 2016!
—