In the first eight months of 2013, Greek tourism finally broke the 2008 record of 8.67 billion from tourism revenues the 8.68 billion euro mark.
Given that the total revenues for all of 2008 had amounted to 11.6 billion, the president of the Association of Hellenic Tourism Enterprises (SETE), Andreas Andreadis, said he expects the revenues until the end of 2013 to amount to 11.6 billion. In addition, he anticipates that this year, the tourism earnings will rise even more and will reach 12.2 billion euros, when revenues from cruise tourism are included.
Tourism arrivals have increased by 1.5 million visitors in the period January-August 2013, compared to 2012. However, no official announcement has been issued yet. SETE expects arrivals to reach 17.5 million by the end of 2013 and it bases this on the already existing rise in arrivals to 12.46 million, in comparison with 10.96 million in 2012.
On Oct 21, the Bank of Greece published the data for the first six months of 2013. These data proved that an 18.1 percent increase took place in revenues, while the annual growth in stay-overs rose by 14.2 percent. The rise in foreign tourist arrivals was 12.3 percent.
Regarding cruises, for the first semester of 2013, the number of cruise passengers rose by 9.5 percent, reaching 185 million euros against 169 million in the first half of 2012. The total revenues from cruise tourism amounted to 519.4 million euros for the whole year of 2012, according to the data released by the Bank of Greece. The port of Piraeus received the lion’s share of cruise passengers of 40.4 percent, while 12.3 percent of cruise passengers arrived in Corfu and 9.6 percent arrived in Santorini.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
