Tourists queue to enter the Acropolis Museum in Athens on August 12, 2022. ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP
On the sacred rock of the Acropolis, an emblematic monument of Athens, hordes of tourists have been parading non-stop since June. After two years of silence due to the Covid-19 pandemic, foreign visitors are back in force in the Greek capital. More than 16,000 people roam the ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Athena every day. An absolute record.
This summer, visitor numbers could surpass the 33 million tourists who landed in Greece in 2019 – more than triple the country’s population. According to the Greek Ministry of Tourism, 5.12 million passengers arrived at the country’s fourteen regional airports in July, up from 4.49 million in 2019. Tourism revenue is also expected to reach 20 billion euros this year, up from 18.2, according to the Bank of Greece billion in 2019.
“After two difficult years, the return of American tourists [500 000 d’entre eux sont venus passer leurs vacances estivales en Grèce, selon le ministère du tourisme]who have high purchasing power is a stroke of luck,” explains Stefania Flega, Managing Director of YES! Hotel that has several facilities in Athens and one on the island of Santorini. Greece is the number one destination for French, Serbs and Israelis this summer.
“Demand has exceeded supply on some islands”
To make up for two lean years and to cope with rising energy prices, daily rates have been revised upwards by around 20%, according to the Hellenic Statistics Agency. “In Athens, hotel prices have not increased excessively, but on some islands demand has exceeded supply and they have skyrocketed compared to 2021,” emphasizes Stefania Flega.
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So much so that some places popular with foreigners, especially in the Cyclades archipelago, have become inaccessible to Greeks. According to centre-right daily I Kathimerini, the cost of a week-long stay for a family with two children on an island more than seven hours by boat from Piraeus port has increased by 65% compared to 2017. The editorial newspaper” (Efsyn, left) also states that in a country where the minimum wage is only 713 euros gross per month, almost every second worker cannot go on vacation to the islands of the Aegean Sea.
“For the Greek middle class, these sentences are a deterrent! », Corinne Harcourt, Travel Agency Iles Cyclades
Yannis Syrianos, a taxi driver in the Athens area, chose to fly to Crete with his wife and daughter and “not to Santorini, Mykonos or Paros”. “I have chosen a destination where fares are still affordable and I have reduced the time spent there. I only went away for five days, whereas before it took me at least a week,” says the forty-year-old.
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