Athens, Greece – According to the latest Travel Report prepared by PayPal and analytical agency GfK – Greek tourists appreciate attractive prices and unique natural and cultural heritage of the CEE region.
Greeks seem to be proud of their country and its tourist value. 99% of them would recommend visiting Greece to foreign tourists while only 1% of respondents would not do this.
The other representatives of surveyed nations, meaning, Poles, Czechs and Hungarians, are proud of their home countries as well (92% of them would recommend visiting their countries to foreign tourists).
In Greeks’ opinion, the most attractive venues for foreign tourists in Greece are the Greek islands, indicated by 70% of respondents. Acropolis, Thessaloniki and Delphi pointed by 60%, 50% and 40% of Greeks, respectively.
The main preferences of Greek travelers
Because of richness and diversity of Central and Eastern Europe, Greek tourists have many options to choose from. In the last three years, the most popular Greeks’ destination in CEE was Bulgaria, visited by 44% of Greek respondents. According to the survey, Cyprus and Czech Republic were the second and the third the most often visited countries by our compatriots, 41% and 15% respectively.
The preferences regarding destinations go hand in hand with the type of holidays taken by tourists. The biggest groups of Greek travelers visiting Central and Eastern Europe in the last 3 years went for leisure (70%) and culture (30%). Other popular types of trips among Greek citizens were family and friends visit (chosen by 15%), business travel (14%) and shopping tours (13%). Only 9% travelled for events (festivals, concerts, performances etc.)
Most of Greeks prefer to visit Central and Eastern Europe in spring and spend there less than one week. For such trips, 35% of Greeks spend 250-500 euros and 34% spend 501-1.000 euros. The most popular occasion for travelling to CEE are annual vacations, followed by national holidays and weekends.
Great tourist attractions, history and culture are the key drivers to travel around CEE
General opinion about travelling to Central and Eastern Europe confirms that Greek people recommend trips across their region because of the great tourist attractions, history and culture, as well as the excellent tourism infrastructure facilities.
The decision regarding place of stay in Central and Eastern Europe is mainly driven by price and good opinions/reviews among friends (it was chosen as very important by 87% and 74% of respondents respectively). Other important factors are distance from downtown (chosen by 75% of tourists), payment methods (71%), peacefulness (65%) and Wi-Fi connection (64%).
“One of the best things about Central and Eastern Europe is a unique and vibrant atmosphere. No matter what you are looking for, you can easily, within a few hours from your home country, visit beautiful islands in Greece, ride a bike around Balaton’s lowlands, wonder around narrow streets of Prague’s Old Town or admire breathtaking views in Tatra Mountains in Poland” – summarizes Matt Komorowski, Managing Director of PayPal in Northern and Central Europe. “One of the things which make a trip more convenient and give travelers piece of mind is a possibility to pay for hotels, flights or tickets to museum easier and safer. In such cases, very useful proposal may be activating PayPal One Touch which keeps you logged in and thanks to that travelers can pay with one click on their mobile devices. Instead of wasting time for filling payment forms for each transaction, travelers can enjoy their holidays.”
Greeks travel around the CEE region by plane, stay in hotels and prefer to pay for their trips online
Internet becomes one of the most important source of information for tourists. 57% of Greeks start preparing for a trip by checking search engines, but 55% of them also rely on friends’ reviews opinions. 25% of Greek travelers used social media to find information about accommodation, tourist attractions, food, visa and administration. At the same time, only 17% of respondents rely on information from offline sources.
The most popular mean of transportation is plane, chosen by 74% of Greek travelers going to Central and Eastern Europe. 30% of us go by car and 16% by bus. When it comes to accommodation, most of Greeks stay in hotels (73%), friends’ places (16%), and rented apartment/houses (12%). What is interesting, even for younger people aged 25-35 hostels are not particularly popular.
Most of the expenditures for vacations in Central and Eastern Europe are covered by cash (62%), followed by credit cards (54%) and PayPal (14%). However, a role of online payments is significant – only 28% of Greek tourists say that they prefer to pay during planning trip offline. What is especially interesting, is that tourist aged 55+ do not differ here a lot from the whole surveyed group as 67% of them also prefer to pay online. 83% of Greek tourists chose payment option based on its security and convenience (42%).
14% of travelers cover some of their last Holiday’s expenses with PayPal – the online payment platform is especially popular among younger tourists for payments for air tickets and accommodation and it was chosen by 56% of those, aged 18-24.
Czech, Hungarians and Poles enjoy visiting neighboring countries
As the research shows, 68% of Czech respondents visited Slovakia. In Hungary, 47% of tourists have been in Croatia, 45% of Polish respondents visited Czech Republic and 44% of Greek respondents visited Bulgaria in the last three years. On the other hand, Greece is among the Top-5 destinations of these three nations. 27%, 26% and 25% of Polish, Czech and Hungarian respondents respectively visited our country during the last three years.
“Central and Eastern Europe has many beautiful venues and attractions to visit. Poland offers interesting places near the border in Klodzko: a newly built and interesting park MiniEuroland and Nowa Ruda (SPA town). Greece offers clean sea and beaches, amazing culture and great culinary experience. Croatia is of course convenient for traveling by car and very popular for Czechs, as you can visit Dubrovnik, Split or Zadar and natural beauties like lakes and parks.” – says one of the Czech respondents.
Regarding specific destinations, Greeks actually prefer the most popular ones of the region, a rather easy and money-saving way to travel. “I would recommend other travelers not to miss the opportunity to visit historical cities such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Bucharest, Prague, Karlovy Vary and Krakow”. – says one of the Greek respondents.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
