Greek tourism showed one of the strongest growth rates worldwide during the first quarter of this year, significantly surpassing even the record levels of the first quarter of 2019. While important international destinations, especially in the American continent and Asia, but also Europe, have not yet fully recovered the levels of arrivals of the pre-pandemic period, Greece is recording new historical highs and indeed in a period of the year that is nothing more than the weakest quarter of the year for tourism.

In March alone the arrivals of non-resident travelers increased by 31.2% and the relative receipts by 34.2% to €372.3 million, compared to the same month of 2023 (€277.5 million). With these data, Greek tourism appears at approximately 120% of its size during the first quarter of 2019, a performance significantly higher than that recorded by the majority of destinations worldwide.

However, the champions in the development of tourism based on arrivals during the first quarter of this year compared to the corresponding period of 2019 were Qatar (+177% compared to the first quarter of 2019), Albania (+121%), Saudi Arabia (+98%), Tanzania (+53%), Curacao (+45%), Serbia (+43%), Turks and Caicos Islands (+42%), Guatemala (+41%) and Bulgaria (+38%). Many of these destinations are either emerging new destinations, such as Albania, or destinations that have lagged far behind in their recovery from the pandemic in previous years.