Greek Tourism: The Russian tourist market is lost – Critical week for bookings overall

It will take years for Russian tourists to come to Greece again, while the week we are going through is also very critical for the course of bookings from the markets of the rest of Europe. Greece expected to receive more than 250,000 Russian tourists this year, and up to 350,000 if the issues with charter flights were resolved, but due to the war, everything has been turned upside down.

Read also: War in Ukraine: War in Ukraine: How much Greek tourism will be affected

The assessment of factors of the Greek-Russian tourism business is that the closed air borders as well as the sanctions will last very long, regardless of when the ceasefire will take place in Ukraine, with the result that the Russian tourist will disappear from our country for years.

However, the gap, due to their small number, although they spend proportionally more than other tourists, can be filled by other “sources” provided of course that the crisis will not go on for a long time.

Greek tourism entrepreneurs are holding their breath and hope that military operations will end this week, a week that is characterized as very critical for the future of tourism.

What everyone is saying is that so far the bookings from Western Europe and the USA have not been affected, but something they fear will happen later if the fighting continues in Ukraine.

The continuation of the conflict and the large increase in energy costs, as the president of the Heraklion Hoteliers Association, Mr. Nikos Chalkiadakis, has already reported to ot.gr, will make the decision of the northern Europeans for holidays more difficult.

For his part, Mr. Fotis Kokkotos, member of the Board of Directors of Elounda SA Hotels and Resorts, emphasizes that first of all, what we all wish is for peace to prevail, and for the war to end. Then we can talk about tourism. In any case and under the condition that the hostilities will end soon, the country has proved in the two years of the pandemic that it can successfully meet the challenges.

Russian tourists

As for the Russians, Greece, as mentioned above, seems to be losing up to 350,000 tourists, this year, while another 100,000 Ukrainians will also be absent.

In 2019, according to the official data of the Border Survey of the Bank of Greece, 583 thousand Russian tourists had traveled to Greece, spending 433 million euros, when the total tourist arrivals in our country were 31.3 million.

The record year in terms of arrivals from Russia was in 2013 when it reached 1.3 million tourists.

In 2020, the number of Russian travelers in Greece, based on the BoG, reached 26 thousand, while in 2021 the tourist traffic from Russia increased by 365.3% compared to the previous year and amounted to 119.5 thousand travelers (s.s .: estimates by industry say about 170 thousand).

In 2020, the Russians spent 14 million euros, according to BoG figures, while in 2021 they spent about 115 million euros.

According to Dimitris Haritidis, CEO of TEZ Group Greece, Russian tourists will turn to Turkey this year if Turkey does not close its airspace to Russian planes but also to Egypt, Dubai, and of course China, which before two days opened the border for the Russians.

However, Mr. Haritidis notes that their company will try to cover part of the losses from Russia and Ukrainians to Greece by increasing programs from the Baltic countries, although we are talking about a much smaller number of tourists.