The balance of travel services posted a surplus of 117.3 million euros in February 2024 compared to a surplus of 116.2 million euros in the same period last year.
In January-February 2024, the balance of travel services showed a surplus of 229.9 million euros.
In particular, travel receipts showed an increase of 22.2% in February 2024 to 291.4 million euros, compared to 238.5 million euros in the corresponding month of 2023, while an increase of 42.3% was also observed in travel payments (February 2024: 174.1 million, February 2023: 122.4 million).
The increase in travel receipts is due, according to the Bank of Greece, to the increase in inbound travel traffic by 26%, as the average expenditure per trip decreased by 2.9%.
Net receipts from the provision of travel services offset the goods balance deficit by 3.8% and contributed 31.2% to total net receipts from services.
In the period January-February 2024, the travel balance showed a surplus of 229.9 million euros, compared to a surplus of 170.7 million euros in the corresponding 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%).
In greater detail, travelers from within the euro area increased by 48.2% to 257.9 thousand. Τtravelers from non-euro area EU27 countries also increased by 58.6% to 130.4 thousand.
Specifically, the number of travelers from Germany rose by 51.6% to 62.5 thousand and the number of travelers from France decreased by 39.8% to 27.3 thousand.
Turning to non-EU27 countries, the number of travelers from the United Kingdom fell by 28.1% to 28.4 thousand, whereas travelers from the United States increased by 87.8% to 41.1 thousand. No travellers were recorded from Russia.
