Tourist arrivals could reach 40 million in Greece if the goal of extending the tourist season from five months to nine was actually achieved.
This was pointed out by Greek Confederation president (SETE) President Yiannis Retsos in an interview to Bloomberg.
“While having almost 30 million tourists from May to September is a huge number, it could reach 40 million in a nine-month period if the tourism season were extended,” Retsos said and added. “The bet now is to enrich the tourism product and have added value that will attract not necessarily more, but richer tourists, so we can have more receipts.”
In order to increase arrivals to 36 million and revenues to 20 billion euros by 2021, Greece needs investments worth 6 billion euros a year, the head of SETE noted and pointed out that “while this is a large number, there is foreign interest to invest.”
Bloomberg underlined that “tourism is Greece’s biggest industry, with arrivals rising 10 percent in 2017 from the previous year to 27.2 million and generating revenue of just over 14.5 billion euros ($18 billion), according to Bank of Greece data. Travel and tourism contributed 32.8 billion euros to Greek economic output in 2016, accounting for 18.6 percent of Greek gross domestic product that year, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. The London-based body expects that figure to rise to 23.8 percent of Greek output in 2027.”
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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
Source: bloomberg.com
