The Greek tourism ministry has declared that the number of German travellers arriving in Greece is likely to shoot up by more than 50% up to 3 million in 2017.
The ministry has predicted that overall, the number of international vacationers would be leading the last year’s all-time high of 27.5 million mark, touching the 30-million mark.
This beautiful, sun-kissed Mediterranean nation has been expecting that it would leverage several growth triggers this year.
Tourists have been abandoning other popular holiday hotspots including Egypt or Turkey this time on account of political turmoil and subsequent increased travel risk. Apart from that, the situation inside Greece has cooled down since the last two years. Dimitris Skalidis who operates three hotels in the fishing town of Tolo in the Peloponnese told the local media that since 2015, Greece has been fortunate enough to steer clear of major strikes and terror attacks. Therefore people are now feeling safe here, he says.
Besides, the implementation of a refugee deal between Turkey and the European Union last year, the influx of refugees in the country that had made several headlines in 2015 has largely declined.
Tourism sector has also started recovering slowly in the affected islands of Chios and Lesbos.
However, the island of Kos has started recording a significant growth in tourist bookings of late. And, it is not just the Germans who have been making a beeline for this country, especially to the beaches and the archaeological locales. Greece is also ready to welcome more than 900,000 tourists from the US in the holiday season of 2017 that is up from 778,600 last year.
Revenues from American holidaymakers are set to increase to €728 or nearly $796 million, according to George Trivizas, who is the chairman of the Hellenic-American Chamber of Tourism (HACT).
This additional cash is a great contributor to the success of the struggling Greek economy that has been a victim of recession from 2008 and 2013, as it struggled to battle a debt crisis. In the year 2016, the regional tourism sector had been able to generate €13 billion and this figure seems to jump up by 50%, as per the tourism ministry.
Therefore, Athens is also optimistic that the increased tourist arrivals would trigger a great increase in the number of employees in the tourism industry of Greece.
Though the tourism sector looks promising here, all is not quite well out here. This is due to the fact that this nation is also impacted by a few austerity measures and tax increases as asserted by Mr. Skalidis.
