Greece’s all-important tourism sector is reportedly headed for a record-breaking year in 2023, with the latest Bank of Greece (BoG) data showing travel receipts of 17.91 billion euros for the first three quarters of the year. This exceeds the 15.5 billion euros for 2022 and even the pre-pandemic tally of 16.1 billion euros for 2019.
The figures correspond to an 11.3 percent increase since 2019.
September 2023’s receipts of 3.2 billion euros also exceeded the corresponding figure of 2.88 billion euros from Sep 2022.
In a related development, Greece’s current account deficit decreased year on year in the January-September 2023 period, thanks to an improvement in the balance of goods, the balance of services and the secondary income account.
This was partially offset by a worsening in the primary income account, the Bank of Greece announced on Monday.
Specifically, the current account deficit fell by 4.6 billion euros to stand at 7.3 billion euros. The balance of goods deficit fell as a result of imports decreasing more than exports. Exports fell by 6.2 percent at current prices (2.2 percent at constant prices).
