The number of tourists that visited Greece between January and July 2018, reached 15 million, according to data released by the Bank of Greece (BoG). The number corresponds to a 14.6% rise compared to the same period last year, while the BoG notes this reflects a 17% increase in revenue in the travel industry in Greece compared to the corresponding period of 2017 amounting to EUR 8,232 billion.
The rise in revenue is attributed to an increase of 23.4% by EU-28 tourists, which was EUR 5.671 million, and by 5.9% in non-EU-28 residents, which amounted to € 2,347 million.
More specifically, revenue from residents of euro area countries increased by 22.4% to EUR 3,504 million, while EU-28 non-euro area residents recovered by 25.0% and amounted to € 2,167 million.
Revenue from Germany grew by 35.2% to € 1.467 million, while revenue from France increased by 2.9% to € 465 million.
Revenue from the United Kingdom also rose 1.2% to € 1,052 million. Out of the non-EU-28 countries, a decrease of 18.2% was recorded in the revenue from Russia, which corresponded to EUR 197 million, while revenue from the US recorded a rise of 27.0% to EUR 503 million.
It should be noted that in the period between January and July 2018, the travel account recorded a surplus of 6.980 billion euros, compared with a surplus of 5.924 billion in the corresponding period of 2017.