Bloomberg features an extensive piece on the market of superyachts and how Greece has kindled the interest of wealthy tourists visiting the country this summer.
Greece of the Acropolis of the whitewashed houses of Mykonos and Santorini and the beautiful beaches of Corfu are welcoming visitors again, attracting wealthy travellers like never before.
Greece in the Aegean is at the top of the Bloomberg superyacht leaderboard for the first time, with at least 194 superyachts in Greek marinas as of June 25th. This is a huge rise, over 80 yachts compared to last month. Destinations in the Aegean and the Adriatic are already very popular, Bloomberg notes despite the ongoing pandemic.
Members of the famous Ritchie family, basketball legend Magic Johnson and Australian James Packer were among the celebrities spotted on boats in Greece last week, while yachts belonging to billionaires David Geffen, Abdullah al Futtaim, and Ernesto Bertarelli were anchored in Greece coasts, according to vessel data analysed by Bloomberg.
As the piece notes, Greece has moved forward with its vaccination programme, fought the outbreak of the pandemic in November 2020 and then in March and April this year. It reopened to foreign tourists on May 14 without quarantine, provided guests have a vaccination certificate or a negative Covid test.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emanuel Macron recently criticised Greece and other tourism-dependent countries for freely accepting visitors who have been vaccinated with the least effective Chinese and Russian vaccines.
The tourism industry, which has been hit hard, represents over 25% of jobs in Greece and about 1/5 of GDP. According to the World Bank, Greece was 18th in the world in terms of arrivals from abroad from 2015-2019 with an average of 30.3 million visitors.
