Greece is ranked 5th out of a total of nine major tourist markets in the Mediterranean this summer in terms of inbound international flight scheduling, both in absolute terms and in terms of the percentage increase in availability compared to last year. The European leader in absolute numbers for the summer season of 2024 belongs, as it is understandable, to Spain, while the 20% increase this year in the number of available seats for Croatia is impressive, which reflects the dynamics of the market.

The data comes from the Institute of the Hellenic Tourism Business Association (INSETE) processing of airline seat planning data for Greece and 8 competing countries in the Mediterranean, namely Spain, Italy, France, Turkey, Portugal, Croatia, Cyprus and Malta.

In summary, based on data from the Institute of the Hellenic Tourism Business Association (INSETE) and OAG, the leading provider of digital information on flights, airports and airlines for the period from June to October:

– For the 9 Mediterranean tourist markets, the total number of seats available for the summer season from March to October 2024 scheduled by airlines reaches 310 million (309.65 million), an increase of 6.9% compared to the 2023 summer season.

– Greece, with a total of 27.13 million airline seats available up to October, is in 5th place, up 8.2% year-on-year, higher than the average of the 9 total tourism markets.

– Croatia, Italy, Malta, Spain, and Greece are experiencing a greater increase than the total of the nine countries overall, with a small gap separating the “champion” Spain (+8.5%) and Greece (+8.2%).

– Spain this year has a total of nearly 79 million available airline seats, up from 72.62 million last year, followed by Italy with a total of over 59 million seats, marking an 11.4% increase, the second largest among the nine countries after Croatia. France completes the top 3 with an increase of 3.2% and 57.53 million seats, while in 4th place before Greece is neighboring Turkey, where the increase in scheduled seats for incoming flights is 5.3%, totaling 50.5 million.

– Croatia shows an impressive percentage increase of 20.2%. Although it is a comparatively smaller market with a total of 6.51 million available seats on incoming international flights for the summer season of 2024, it remains the most notable performance of the summer.

In terms of nationalities among the total of the nine Mediterranean tourist markets with 310 million scheduled airline seats this year, the largest share is held by the United Kingdom with 46.4 million scheduled seats for outbound flights to the Mediterranean (+5% compared to 2023). It is followed by Germany with a +6.5% and over 36.7 million scheduled seats, and then Italy with over 19.3 million (+8%).