The South Aegean welcomed 15% more visitors at the gates of its international airports than in 2019, marking a new milestone in tourism, the South Aegean Tourism Initiative has announced.
At 15%, they exceeded 2019 numbers, New Money reported. As a strong and undeniable vote of confidence in a destination that during the pandemic crisis proved to be mature, responsible and safe, more than 6 million passengers disembarked in Cyclades and Dodecanese.
International airports on these island groups managed, this season, 34,756 direct international flights.
Santorini leads the way with a staggering 56% increase over 2019. The largest increase in international arrivals compared to the pre-pandemic record was seen by Santorini, which was visited by 811,000 passengers, compared to 519,000 in 2019, via 5,700 direct flights at the island's airport.
Mykonos is up 21% compared to the pre-pandemic record.
The 2019 excess rate was also in double digits for Mykonos, namely 21%, since 575,000 of the 475,000 passengers landed on the island this year. Rhodes is the island with the most international arrivals in the South Aegean
As expected and proportional to its size, Rhodes, as the largest island of the South Aegean, received the most flight passengers. With 2,550,000 passengers, it surpassed the historical record of 2019, during which 2,340,000 travelers from abroad visited the island, marking an increase of 9%.
Accordingly, with 1,240,000 direct international arrivals, the season also closes for Kos, which also managed to surpass the performance of 2019 by 6%.
The 2022 season started for Fraport's four international airports in the South Aegean, Rhodes, Kos, Mykonos and Santorini, in March - earlier than any other year - with the last international flight to Rhodes and Kos on 7 November.
The fifth international airport of the South Aegean, that of Karpathos, welcomed 88,000 passengers in 2022, achieving a 100% increase compared to 2021, where 43,000 passengers visited the island. The 2022 season "measures" more than 6m. air arrivals
The five international airports of the South Aegean handled just over 34,700 direct international arrivals carrying 5,270,000 passengers from abroad.
Adding to the above data the 812,000 foreign passengers who transferred from Athens International Airport to an airport in the South Aegean, the 2022 season "counts" 6,080,000 visitors to the Cyclades and Dodecanese.
In the beyond all expectations and forecasts performance of air arrivals, the passengers of the coastal ferry network to the islands are not taken into account.
English and Germans are the top markets for the Dodecanese. English and Italians for the Cyclades. With the completion of the season, the top five by market and by airport has also been formed.
For the island of Rhodes, the number 1 market, as far as direct flights are concerned, is Great Britain with a percentage of 24%. Germany follows with 21%, while the 3rd, 4th and 5th places are Poland, Israel and France respectively.
The traditional market for Kos in Germany confirmed again this year the tendency to emerge as the largest market for the island of Hippocrates. With a high rate of 33%, it surpasses Great Britain by 8 percentage points, which comes in second.
In 3rd place with 9% is the Netherlands, another popular market for Kos and in 4th place is Poland, the new strong market of recent years for the island of Kos, as well as for Rhodes. The 5th place is jointly held by Italians and Belgians with a percentage of 4%.
For Mykonos, Italians were its top market at 29% with the English following in 2nd place at 20%. The five for the island of the winds are completed by the French, Germans and Swiss.
The same markets in reverse order are in the top two for the island of Santorini, where the English "gave" 26% of international arrivals and the Italians 24%.
They are followed, as in Mykonos, by the French and Germans with 15% and 8% respectively, and the top five are rounded off by Poles and Swiss (from 3%).
The national and European success of the South Aegean in Tourism in 2022 lays the ground in the best way for the next tourism year, which based on the bookings so far and despite the conditions of punctuality, inflation and uncertainty due to the war, looks extremely fertile also in 2023.
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