According to a study by the World & Travel Tourism Council, the tourism and travel sector in Greece grew by 6.9% in 2018, at a rate 3.5 times higher than the growth rate of the national economy at large, which was 2.0%.
The Council also underlined that tourism represents 20.6% of Greece's GDP, compared to 10.4%, the global rate for tourism to GDP. This means that one in five euros spent in Greece last year came from the tourism and travel industry, a spending total of 37.5 billion euros.
One-quarter of employment in Greece is in tourism, equivalent to 988,600 jobs. In 2019, this figure is expected to exceed one million jobs, according to the WTTC's estimated trajectory of Greek tourism.
This data comes from the WTTC's Economic Impact Research 2019 Annual Review of the economic impact and social importance of tourism.
The survey, which has been conducted by the WTTC for nearly 30 years, shows that the growth of tourism and travel in Greece went beyond the European Union's sector growth rate of 2.4%. The Greek travel sector has risen steadily compared to the European averages, boosted by 18.5 billion euros from the spending of international visitors, and accounting for 27.9% of total exports, it said.
Simultaneously, two-thirds of incoming travel spending in Greece came from international visitors (66%) and one-third from domestic travel (34%).
Moreover, the bulk of travel expenses (94%) were for recreational purposes and 6% for business.
