The development of tourism in 2024 in Greece involves climate change, major summer sporting events and also the unstable factors that can affect the global tourism industry.
On the occasion of the recent negative development of its bankruptcy from the German travel giant FTI the comment of the president of XEE, A. is typicalAlexander Vassilikos, who stressed that tourism proves once again that it does not lend itself to excess optimism or complacency, since from one moment to the next many facts can be reversed.
Even if the current unpleasant development does not seem to affect the overall picture that is emerging for 2024 in Greece, however, the more than 160,000 reservations expected this year, with 1/4 of them referring to the two months of April to May, this is not an insignificant amount. What is certain, however, is that the remaining tour operators have already launched into the battle with the aim of recovering existing reservations.
Tassios: 2024 will continue at the pace of 2023 for Greek tourism
Concerning the messages for the current tourist year, addressing the APE-MPE and the Frformer president of POX Grigoris Tasios, a few days before the evolution of the FTI, he had stressed that in 2024 it would return to the levels of 2023. In fact, he spoke of a freezing of deductions observed during this period, a consequence of the inflationary pressures that European households confront.
Yes yes Mr Tassios believes that the two major sporting events of the summer, the Euro football and the Paris Olympic Games will have an impact on the travel of European households this year. It is estimated that many will travel by road near the countries where the games will take place, at the expense of air travel with tourist packages.
In the meantime, unstable factors linked to climate change, it is possible to present disturbances in the areas where these will develop and everyone’s wish is that events like those in Rhodes last year do not happen again.
This period, Tour operators analyze the performance of regions in Greece and they are already rushing to conclude contracts with hoteliers for 2025, with the aim of achieving low prices, as has been highlighted. Regardless, the next period will shed even more light on the development of tourism in Greece, which is so far developing at higher levels than last year.
Air arrivals in Greece increased by 12.3% between January and April 2024
Concretely, according to INSETE data, during the period January-April 2024, 3.1 million international air arrivals were recorded, exceeding the levels of January-April 2023, showing an increase of +12.3 %. Meanwhile, April began with a more moderate increase of 6%, with 1.5 million international air arrivals.
With reference to the regions that were the stars of the first quarter of the year, all geographical units, except the Cyclades, moved upwards. In particular, in the geographical unit of Crete, international air arrivals increased by 2.8% compared to last year, reaching 312 thousand.
Only the Cyclades moved with a drop in arrivals over the four months of 2024
International air arrivals in airports from the Dodecanese reached 208 thousand, an increase of 11.3%. In the geographical unit of the Ionian Islands, an increase of 10.4% was recorded while 111 thousand international air arrivals were recorded. In the geographical unit of Peloponnese, international air arrivals reached 9 thousand, recording an increase of 14.8%.
In that,Concerning the Cyclades there were 45,000 international air arrivals, a drop of 8.7%. Finally, regarding road arrivals during the period January-April 2024, these were recorded at 1.8 million international road arrivals, compared to 1.7 million during the period January-April 2023 , an increase of 5.1%.