Last Wednesday the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts (ITEP) published a study demonstrating that Greeks have considerably slashed their spending on vacations from 2008 to 2014.
The difference in the amount of money Greeks spent traveling abroad in this time period was the greatest decline at 72.2 percent. Total expenditure declined from 1 billion euros in 2008 to a mere 293 million in 2014, while trips abroad were down 51.6 percent, signs of the economic crisis that has hit Greece hard since 2010.
Within Greece, domestic tourism has also suffered and from 2008 to 2014 spending on holidays has declined 64 percent. It is estimated that Greeks spent around 1.14 billion euros on domestic vacations in 2014. This number is down considerably from 3.16 billion euros in 2008. ITEP conducted the survey using data from trips consisting of at least four nights in duration and found that trips to domestic Greek destinations went down from 2008 to 2014 by 45.2 percent.
Meanwhile, ITEP forecasts foreign tourism to Greece in 2016 to top last year’s numbers at around 27 million.
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