The summer performance creates expectations for achieving a historic record for Greek tourism, according to the new issue of the "Business Trends" series by the Economic Analysis Division of the NBG.

Furthermore, delving into the data, it emerges that this year's performance could have been even higher if our country had not been affected by unprecedented adverse conditions both at the national level (mainly natural disasters) and in the international environment (mainly contractionary precision effects).

More specifically, according to the study by the National Bank, Greek tourism has already broken this year's record for arrivals in the summer of 2019 (16.9 million arrivals or +2% compared to 2019), simultaneously strengthening its market share in the Mediterranean market (25% from 24% in 2019). The main driving force was air arrivals (+14% compared to 2019), mainly from "traditional developed markets" (+19% compared to 2019), with the USA standing out for their dynamism (+24% compared to 2019). In contrast, road arrivals, mainly from the Balkan markets, remained below 2019 levels (-8%). The positive performance of tourism had a positive impact on employment, with net hirings in the January-August period being 9.7% higher than the corresponding period in 2019.

However, as the economic analysts of the National Bank point out, this positive picture "hides" an interesting aspect: Not all months of the summer of 2023 surpassed the arrivals of 2019. Thus, while the June-July period was 6.5% higher than 2019, August closed at -4% (compared to 2019). Natural disasters (fires) and extreme weather conditions - due to climate change - could be considered as the crucial parameter for the weak performance of August, which cost 0.3 million arrivals (based on the conservative estimate that August could approach the 2019 level).

Regarding the last quarter of 2023, a continuation of the upward trend is expected at a rate of around 11% compared to 2019 (accelerating from the +3% of the first nine months of the year), supported by strong air traffic in October (+21% compared to 2019) and the high performance of flights in the first 20 days of November (+11% compared to 2019). In this context, Greek tourism is expected to set a new record for arrivals this year (+4% compared to 2019), with revenues exceeding the 20 billion euros level - a level consistent with our previous estimate (third-quarter issue) - ending up 13% higher than in 2019.