Road tourism down in Greece by 7% in first 6 months of 2016

Refugee crisis major cause for drop

Road tourism in Greece has suffered a ‘blow’ for the first 6 months of 2016, according to data released by the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE). The data shows that 4.2 million tourist entered Greece via road between January and June of 2016, a 7% drop compared to the previous year. The decrease is mainly from Bulgaria and Albania and is attributed to the refugee crisis. At the same time tourist agents are pointing out significant problems at the points of entry into Greece. The President of the Hellenic Hotel Federation, Yiannis Restos, said these problems could be resolved with ‘political will’ and did to requite any money. It should be noted that over the past period tourists travelling by road to Greece from Turkey faced long delays of up to 4 hours at entry points into the country due to the requirements for biometric details on their papers.

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