Greece second most popular destination for Germans

Balearic Islands first

Greece is the second most popular tourist destination for Germans after the Balearic Islands. The President of the German Travel Association (DRV), Norbert Fiebig nearly 70% more Germans had picked Greece as their holiday destination compared to last year in January. The booking data of Germans revealed that Turkey was hit the most, as it recorded a 60% drop in demand from Germany. Mr. Fiebig presented that figures during the ITB Travel Trade Show in Berlin, where Greece was represented with 76 exhibitors from the tourism, shipping, prefects, travel agency and hotel industries. The political instability in countries such as Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia has forced German travelers to seek other options for the their holidays. Many of the German customers are booking early to avoid the rising demand. Some market pundits believe the number of Germans to visit Greece is expected to reach the 3,5 million mark. According to the Banik of Greece, 3,2 million Germans visited Greece in 2016. Despite the financial uncertainty many tour operators have increased their offers to Greece. TUI has raised its hotel bed availability by 40% for Crete, Rhodes and Kos compared to 2016. And this despite a slight rise in packages to Greece of about 4%. The positive outlook in the absolute number of visitors to Greece is not certain to impact the annual revenue, as shown by the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), which revealed that despite the rise in absolute visitors to Greece revenue dropped by 6.4% last year.