An early start to the 2022 summer season has seen Greek business owners united in the opinion that June felt more like the traditionally busier month of August.
After recently returning from Greece, Ouzo Talk co-host Tom Skolarikis says that pent-up travel demand has led to a visible boom in early arrivals in Greece this summer – a trend that is being felt by businesses, many of whom are still looking for staff to be able to service the new early arrivals.
“There are a lot of people over there right at the moment – so much so that business owners are all saying the same thing; ‘This feels as though we’re in August, because of the volume of people,” Skolarikis told his co-host, Nick Athanassiou.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that many people over there, and I’ve never seen them there that early – it bodes very, very well for the 2022 Summer season.”
With an international flight reportedly landing every five minutes in Greece, 2022 is on track to be a record-breaking year for Greek tourism.
The trend is also in line with a recent statement from Hellenic Hoteliers’ Federation President, Georgios Tasios, who cited an early start to the Summer season while also signalling that tourism revenues in 2022 could be as high as 15 billion euros, or 80 pct of the revenues in 2019
The early results are also promising in light of the lack of Russian tourists.
“Bear in mind, there’s not a lot of Russians or Ukrainians travelling at the moment because of what’s happening in the world right now, and they make up a fair portion of people travelling to Greece (each year). If they were able to travel, I suspect it (Greek tourism) would be even bigger (this year).
The Ouzo Talk podcast is available on all major podcast streaming apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, SOUNDIS.GR and more. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Listen also to Ouzo Talk episode Mary Coustas: ‘Greek women are super powerful’
