Visitors to Greece spend only 68 euros on average, BoG data shows

Final data released on Greek tourism

Revenue from Greek tourism was down by 919 million euros compared to last year, according to the final data on the sector released by the Bank of Greece (BoG). The reports showed that the average spending by tourists amounted to 68 euros in 2016. The travel balance reached 11.2 billion euros in 2016, a 7.3% drop from 2015, which was mainly attributed to a 6.5% fall in travel revenue, as well as a 32 million-euro, or 1.2% reduction in travel payments. A fall in the average spending by 70 euros per trip in 2016 accounted for a decrease in travel revenue compared to 2015. Spending per night stay was down by 9.1% (2016: 68 euros, 2015: 75 euros), while the average stay was cut to 6.9 nights (a 4.3% fall compared to 7.2 nights in 2015). The number of stays in 2016 was up by 2.9% amounting to 193,419 nights. Travel revenue reached 13.2 billion euros in 2016, a 6.5% fall from 2015, which is attributed to a drop in citizens’ income outside the EU28 by 14.6%, which represents 27.7% of the aggregate revenues of the sector. The total revenue was also affected by a fall of the average income by EU28 citizens by 9,097 million euros. The BoG data also showed that there were 4,093 cruise liner arrivals via, slightly down from the 4,375 arrivals in 2015, with 5,053 and 5,118 visitors, respectively. The total revenue from cruise liner visitors in 2016 was up by 1% amounting to 509 million euros.