They increased by 12.8% according to IKSETE – Impressive current from the USA this year
The impressive increase in air arrivals from America seals the course of tourist flows to Greece this year.
Already, international air arrivals rose 12.8% in the January-May 2024 period, compared to last year, reaching 5.9 million, according to INSETE data. As Aris Ikkos, Scientific Director of the SETE Institute, points out to APE, this summer season the airline seats scheduled on direct flights from the USA increased by 25% compared to last year, reaching 600,000 seats, compared to 440,000 last year . Taking into account non-summer arrivals as well as arrivals via third-country airports, it is expected that Americans visiting Greece this year will exceed the 1.4 million arrivals in 2023, with all that implies for the footprint in the domestic economy since the Average Per Capita Expenditure of American visitors is significantly higher than the average. As far as the figures for the first five months of 2023 are concerned, receipts from the USA increased by 35.7% and amounted to 205 million euros.
However, sticking to the figures that characterize the current tourist year, special mention should also be made of the launch of the short-term rental market. According to Mr. Ikko, based on the development so far, it is expected that in July the beds in the short-term lease will exceed one million, while in 2019 it was 700 thousand. At the same time, the beds in hotel accommodation amount to 880,000 beds. At this point, the scientific director of INSETE notes that with such a large increase in the supply of beds, there is a mismatch between what is happening at the “macro” level and what is happening at the business level: “Well, we may have an increased tourist flow but a business is seeing a decrease in occupancy, due to its wide spread in more accommodations.”
The course of air arrivals in the period January-May
Specializing in the five-month arrivals data, which, as already highlighted, international air arrivals already record an increase of 12.8% compared to last year in Greece, INSETE records what happened in the individual geographical units always for the period January-May 2024 .
Specifically, an increase was registered by the individual geographical units in the period January-May 2024 with the exception of the Cyclades. In particular, in the geographical unit of Crete, international air arrivals reached 957 thousand, recording an increase of 10.0%. At the same time, international air arrivals at the airports of the Dodecanese reached 763 thousand, marking an increase of 13.8%. In the geographical unit of the Ionian Islands, however, an increase of 12.9% was recorded. On the contrary, in the Cyclades there were 158 thousand international air arrivals, showing a decrease of 3.1%.
Road arrivals increased by 13.35% in the period January-May 2024
Finally, in terms of road arrivals, 2.5 million international road arrivals were recorded in the period January-May 2024, compared to 2.2 million in the period January-May 2023, showing an increase of +13.3%. In the period January-May 2024, arrivals from Albania decreased by 6.7% and amounted to 562 thousand. Conversely, the increase from Bulgaria amounts to 20.6% with 797 thousand arrivals and from Turkey an increase 47.0% with road arrivals at 419 thousand. Finally, the increase from North Macedonia amounted to 9.7% with road arrivals at 748 thousand.
