Trade with Greece
115
North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean
in summer 2017, via its nonstop service between
Athens International Airport and New York’s “John
F. Kennedy” International Airport. Starting on April
15, 2017, Delta has re-scheduled the Athens-New
York nonstop route, which is operated in conjunc-
tion with joint venture partners Air France, KLM
and Alitalia.
Moreover, Volotea, Spain’s low-cost carrier, which
specialises in connecting small and medium-
sized cities in Europe, already has established a
significant presence in Greece and recently
announced a new flight from Athens to Genoa,
starting from this summer season. This route will
commence on May 26, adding 7,000 seats to the
carrier’s current capacity, with almost 60 new
flights. Volotea continues to expand its Athens-
based network, operating four routes to Italy and
three in Greece during 2017, offering, overall,
115,000 seats and seven destinations out of
Athens. It should be noted that Volotea has trans-
ported more than 590,000 passengers since it
launched operations in Greece in 2012, offering
connections to 13 Greek airports.
Double growth compared to
the world average
In 2017, Greek tourism is expected to grow at
double the world average growth rate. Indeed, the
Secretary General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifai, in
a joint Press conference on the occasion of the
conference “Greece: A travel destination for 365
days a year”, organised by the Greek Ministry and
the Greek National Tourism Organisation
(GNTO), referred to Greece’s excellent prospects
for 2017.
“This year’s tourist season that you will experi-
ence will be the best ever,” he said. As pointed out
by the Secretary General of the GNTO, Dimitris
Tryfonopoulos, during the same conference
tourism is expected to “grow by 7% in 2017, a rate
that is double the world average growth rate.
Based on advance bookings by major tour opera-
tors for the year 2017, guest nights are up by 29%
and revenues are up by 36%.”
Furthermore, he noted that “the growth [of
advance bookings] from China –a target market–
stood at 125% in November 2016 and in 65% in
February.” On his part, Mr. Rifai spoke of the
industry’s importance for Greece. He said that
last year was the 7th consecutive year that
tourism outgrew every other industry.
International tourist arrivals grew by 3.9 percent
in 2016. “Over 1.2 billion international tourists
Meanwhile, many airlines
have announced new
international routes, as
well as increases in the
frequency of flights to
existing destinations.
”
“
