June is excellent except for Mykonos and Santorini.

In a battle to limit their losses, Mykonos And the Santorini And month after month they seem to be winning this battle. But the war (of the season in tourismI still miss him…

As shown by the tourism traffic data collected and processed by INSETE, the first month of summer saw a very good performance in terms of domestic tourism. In particular, the number of air arrivals in June reached 3.8 million, representing an increase of +5.6% / +203 thousand compared to June 2023.

Athens, Heraklion, Rhodes, Corfu and Chania are the top 5 Greek airports that received the most international tourists in June (2.58 million), attracting 67.7% of summer arrivals. Thessaloniki comes next, with nearly 260,000 international arrivals, most of whom head to Halkidiki.

In contrast, Mykonos recorded a loss of 3.4% with 91,800 arrivals in June, while Santorini recorded a marginal loss of 0.2% with 121,753 international arrivals.

The Cyclades airports started the season with heavy losses. Mykonos registered a -64.8% decrease in March, when international flights started, -12.1% in April and -5.8% in May. Thus, since the beginning of the season, around 136,700 foreign tourists have arrived on the island, a number that is 5% less than last season.

According to hoteliers, the second year of low traffic on the island has prompted businessmen to lower their prices in order to fill their rooms, which is expected to be reflected in the July and August statistics, but without being able to completely reverse the negative image of the destination.

Accordingly, March in Santorini started with a decrease of -39.7%, April closed with -4.4%, while May saw a marginal increase of 0.5%. A total of 233,500 foreign tourists have arrived on the island since the beginning of the season, a number that decreased by 1.1%.

International arrivals picture since the beginning of the year

In the period January-June 2024, 9.7 million international air arrivals were recorded, exceeding the levels of January-June 2023 (8.9 million), indicating an increase of +9.6% / +855 thousand arrivals.

An increase was recorded by individual geographical units in the period from January to June 2024, excluding the Cyclades. In particular, in the geographical unit of Crete, the number of international air arrivals reached 1.8 million, registering an increase of +144 thousand / +8.6%. The number of international air arrivals at the airports of the Dodecanese reached 1.5 million, registering an increase of +140 thousand / +10.2%. In the geographical unit of the Ionian Islands, an increase of +77 thousand / +6.9% was recorded, while 1.2 million international air arrivals were recorded. In the Peloponnese, the number of arrivals reached 7.4 thousand, registering an increase of +6 thousand / +8.3%.

Road users

In the period January-June 2024, 4.0 million arrivals were recorded via international routes, compared to 3.5 million in the period January-June 2023, indicating an increase of +13.7%/+485 thousand road arrivals. In June, the number of road arrivals reached 1.5 million, representing an increase of +189 thousand/+14.5%.

Arrivals from Turkey (564,000) saw a staggering 40.6% increase, while the top nationality in absolute numbers arriving by land were Bulgarians with 1.5 million arrivals (+16.7%).

The increase from North Macedonia was +134 thousand/+12.2%, with road arrivals reaching 1.2 million, while arrivals from Albania decreased by -28 thousand/-3.9% and amounted to 706 thousand.

Short term leases

The year 2024 will see a continued increase in the supply of accommodation, reflecting the dynamic growth of the short-term rental industry. This increase amounts to approximately 20,000 units per month.

The number of accommodation places in June was 224,860 compared to 204,578 in June 2023 and 217,915 in May 2024.

A similar picture is seen in the number of beds, with the period from January to June 2024 seeing a gradual increase in the total number of beds compared to the 2023 figures. The increase is on average 90,000 and the total number of beds and the number of beds provided approached one million beds in June, and is expected to exceed it in July.

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