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Greece has confirmed that 2022 is turning out to be an excellent year for the country’s tourism sector, revealing that arrivals and revenues from tourism have increased in many parts of the country, even surpassing the numbers of tourists that travelled to these areas in 2019.

The Greek Minister of Tourism, Vassilis Kikilias, said regarding these data that in spite of the many problems caused by the energy crisis, inflation, the war in Ukraine and the pandemic, Greece is set to increase the number of tourist arrivals until the end of 2022, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

“Successes in tourism require a lot of hard work in the winter, which was done and these efforts are now bearing fruit, while he thanked the industry professionals for the quality and high-level services they offer to visitors, upgrading the tourism product of the country,” he pointed out in this regard.

According to Minister Kikilias, the arrivals of American tourists in Greece have increased by 50 per cent compared to 2019, as a result of the strong Greek-American relations, which the Minister said that the Prime Minister sealed with his trip to Washington.

Furthermore, he underlined another specific strategy that brought the agreement with American Airlines for 63 direct flights per week from the USA to “El. Venizelos”.

“A large number of American travellers as well as the contacts made with the markets in the Balkan countries – as a result of which Greece is the number 1 destination for Romanian and Serbian tourists this year – compensated for the losses from Russia, Ukraine and especially from the large market of China which remains closed due to the pandemic,” Kikilias noted.

Minister Kikilias also stated that a typical example is Thassos, which is full of Romanian travellers, while the occupation on the island for Easter was at 90 per cent and is now at 100 per cent.

On July 6, the Minister, referring to the data of a World Travel Market survey, explained that six of the ten main European tourist destinations that recorded the highest growth compared to 2019 are in Greece.

Mykonos and Rhodes thus recorded an increase of 29 per cent compared to the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, Chania recorded an increase of 26 per cent, followed by Santorini with 20 per cent and Thessaloniki-Halkidiki with 19 per cent.

The Minister also mentioned the projects of over €100 million through the Recovery Fund for thermal, mountain and diving tourism, which are related to the principles of sustainable development for a cleaner and greener future.

Moreover, Kikilias revealed other plans that have also been drawn up for Santorini and Mykonos, two of the country’s islands that are global destinations, referring to the actions related to the development of infrastructure projects, as well as the management of water resources and other projects.