Tourism fully recovered in Greece in 2023. The number of foreign tourists even exceeded the pre-pandemic level by 4%.
In 2023, international tourist arrivals to Greece amounted to 32.7 million people.
Most foreign tourists arrived in Greece by air. There were 24.1 million international air arrivals in 2023.
The largest increase in international passengers was at Athens and Thessaloniki airports.
- Athens International Airport saw 7.1 million international passengers.
- At Heraklion Airport (Crete), the number of foreign passengers was 3.6 million.
- The number of foreign passengers arriving at Chania airport (Crete) reached 1.4 million.
- Thessaloniki airport recorded 2.4 million international passengers.
- Rhodes Airport (Rhodes Island) recorded 2.6 million international air arrivals.
- Kos airport recorded 1.3 million international arrivals.
- International air arrivals reached 1.8 million at Corfu Airport.
- Zakynthos Island Airport served 991 thousand international passengers.
- Santorini airport received 743 thousand international passengers.
2023 was a record year for cruises in Greece. The total number of cruise ship calls reached 5,230 and the number of cruise passengers reached 7.0 million. This was a significant increase compared to 2022. Not all ports showed strong growth.
An increase in the number of cruise passengers was noted in the ports of Mykonos, Santorini, Piraeus, Heraklion, and Patmos in 2023.
A decrease was recorded in the port of Corfu (10%), in the port of Rhodes (3%) and in the port of Kefalonia.
10.4 million international tourists arrived in Greece by car. Of these, 1.35 million passengers came from Italy.
In 2023, inbound (international) tourism traffic in Greece increased by +17.6% to 32.7 million travelers.
The largest number of tourists came to Greece from EU countries (19.6 million travelers).
Tourist traffic from non-EU countries increased by +20.8% to 13.09 million.
Some sources of international tourism in Greece in 2023:
- 4.76 million travelers arrived from Germany.
- France - 1.83 million travelers.
- UK - 4.59 million travelers.
- The number of tourists from the United States was about 1.4 million.
Greeks also love to travel. For many years, the most popular countries for travel have been Bulgaria, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Cyprus, France, and Spain.
Top destinations that Greek residents were interested in in 2023:
- Rome.
- London.
- Paris.
- Istanbul.
- Vein.
- Milan.
- Barcelona.