Bank of Greece (BoG), tourist revenues increased
by 6% in 2015, to 14.2 billion euros, a development
brought about by exceptional performance in many
individual areas. In this context, the number of
American visitors exceeded 750 thousand, gener-
ating revenues of 945.6 million euros, increased by
44.4% (!), while the number of British tourists
reached 2.4 million, with revenues of more than 2
billion euros, increased by 30.5%. The common
feature in both cases is the positive effect of the
depreciation of the respective national currencies
—US dollar, pound sterling— against the euro.
Arrivals from Germany also did well (+14.5%), as
more than 2.8 million visitors generated 2.26 billion
T
he previous year did indeed offer lots of
publicity to Greece: two national elec-
tions and a referendum in-between; end-
less hours of crucial negotiations in Brussels; cap-
ital controls; substantial refugee flows, and so forth.
So, it is very likely that, at least in this instance and,
of course, in retrospect, this was a typical case of
“any publicity is good publicity.”
The great resilience Greek tourism showed, not
only by maintaining, but also by increasing its
growth rate despite intense shocks, both internal
and external, was translated into improved per-
formance in quantitative and qualitative terms.
More specifically, according to data released by the
Trade with Greece
96
This title perfectly summarizes the actual situation,
since we would not exaggerate by saying that,
following a superb 2014, the year 2015 was even
better in terms of both the number of arrivals and
revenues, as the sector successfully weathered many
complex problems, some of them unprecedented.
By Leonidas Tsaoulas
Another good year
for Greek tourism
