Revenue from Greece’s flagship tourism industry has failed to keep up with arrivals, even during the annual summer crunch that prompted overtourism concerns, Bank of Greece data showed Monday.
Non-resident arrivals in Greece from January to August increased by 9.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, while revenue rose by just 3.2 percent, the bank said.
In August alone, industry revenue fell by 1.8 percent compared to last year even as the number of tourists grew by 6.6 percent, it said.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis downplayed the trend, telling reporters on Monday that “overall figures for the entire season indicate we are heading towards another record year”.
Figures could balance out by the end of the year, once September is taken into account, according to the financial news website moneyreview.gr.
Some experts blamed record-high temperatures and heatwaves for shorter stays, as well as northern European tourists — the majority in Greece — increasingly taking less time off and cutting spending.
A record-breaking 32.7 million foreign tourists visited the Mediterranean country in 2023. Greece’s National Bank in June said it expected that figure to hit 35 million in 2024.
Acknowledging the strain on some popular destinations such as Mykonos and Santorini, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis last month announced a 20-euro ($22) fee on cruise passengers disembarking on the islands.
But the premier has insisted that Greece “does not have an overtourism problem”.
What the country does face, he said at a tourism event last week, is a “major concentration of tourists in a few specific destinations over a few months during the year”.
Facilities have been stretched on some Aegean islands, Mitsotakis said, and authorities have temporarily frozen new tourism construction permits on Mykonos and Santorini.