The balance of travel services posted a surplus of 10.258 billion euros in the January-September 2016 period, down 9.0 pct from a surplus of 11.269 billion in January-September 2015, the Bank of Greece said on Monday.
In a report, the central bank attributed this development to a decrease of 1.007 billion euros or 7.9 pct in travel receipts and to an increase of 5 million euros or 0.3 pct in travel payments. The decrease in travel receipts in January-September 2016 over the same period of 2015 was mainly driven by a fall in average expenditure per trip by 75 euros or 13.2 pct(January-September 2016: 491 euros, January-September 2015: 566 euros), as the number of non-resident inbound visitors increased by 6.1 pct.
Specifically, expenditure per overnight stay dropped by 8.8 pct (January-September 2016: 69 euros, January-September 2015: 75 euros), while the average length of stay fell by 4.9 pct year-on-year to 7.2 nights (January-September 2015: 7.5 nights). Overnight stays in January-September 2016 increased by 1.0 pct to 171,754 thousand, from 170,063 thousand in January-September 2015.
Travel receipts in January-September 2016 totaled 11.781 billion euros, down 7.9 pct relative to the same period of 2015. This development was driven mainly by a 15.4 pct decrease in receipts from outside the EU28, which came to 3.206 billion euros or 27.2 pct of total travel receipts, as well as by a drop in receipts from residents of the EU28 (down 5.1 pctto 8.190 billion).
In particular, January-September 2016 saw receipts from euro area residents fall by 8.8 pct year-on-year to ?5,012 million, while receipts from residents of non-euro area EU28 countries rose by 1.4 pct to ?3,178 million.
Among major countries of origin, receipts from Germany fell by 8.5 pct to 1.837 billion euros and those from France by 25.8 pct to 826 million. Receipts from the United Kingdom also fell, by 7.4 pct to 1.730 billion. Turning to non-EU28 countries, receipts from Russia rose by 2.9 pct to 401 million euros, while those from the United States fell by 26.1 pct to 633 million euros.
As already mentioned, the number of inbound visitors in January-September 2016 rose by 6.1 pct to 23,984 thousand, from 22,596 thousand a year earlier. In particular, visitors from Germany increased by 6.2 pct to 2,536 thousand, while those from France fell by 11.6 pct to 1,186 thousand. Visitors from the United Kingdom increased by 15.6 pct to 2,456 thousand. Finally, turning to non-EU28 countries, visitors from Russia rose by 18.9 pct to 525 thousand and those from the United States fell by 2.8 pct to 640 thousand.
The period under review saw 3,400 cruise ship arrivals (January-September 2015: 3,544) and 4,181 thousand cruise passenger visits (January-September 2015: 4,137 thousand). In January-September 2016, total receipts from cruise passengers rose by 2.4 pct year-on-year to 429.4 million euros. The port of Piraeus ranks first with a share of 44.2 pct in total cruise receipts, followed by the port of Corfu with 14.4 pct and the port of Santorini with 8.9 pct.
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