Travel receipts in February 2024, were up by 22.2% and by 24.5% in two months of January-February 2024, according to provisional data released by the Bank of Greece (BoG) on Monday.
The rise in travel receipts emanated from a 20.7% increase in inbound traveller flows and a 3.3% increase in average expenditure per trip. Net travel receipts offset 4.0% of the goods deficit and contributed 28.3% to total net receipts from services.
Travel receipts rose by 112.2 million euros to €569.7 million, while travel payments increased by 53.0 million euros, or 18.5%, to 339.8 million.
Receipts from residents of EU27 countries increased by 57.3% to 154.8 million euros, whereas receipts from non-EU residents fell by 2.7% (February 2024: 134.3 million, February 2023: 138.0 million).
The rise in receipts from within the EU27 was driven by increases in receipts from euro area residents by 48.2% (February 2024: €125.1 million, February 2023: 84.4 million) as well as in receipts from residents of non-euro area EU27 countries by 111.5% to 29.8 million.
In more detail, receipts from Germany increased by 65.5% to 29.7 million, while receipts from France saw a 50.1% drop to 14.1 million. For non-EU27 countries, receipts from the United Kingdom decreased by 30.8% to 13.2 million, as did receipts from the United States, by 4.3% to 23.0 million. No receipts were recorded from Russia.
Regarding the balance of travel services for January-February 2024, there was a surplus of 229.9 million euros, up from a surplus of 170.7 million in the same period of 2023.
The number of inbound travelers in February 2024 rose by 26.0% year-on-year to 721.3 thousand. Specifically, traveler flows through airports increased by 27.2% year-on-year, while traveler flows through road border-crossing points rose by 25.6%. This overall increase was due to higher traveler flows from both within the EU27 (up by 51.5%) and outside the EU27 (up by 5.3%).
