Published on •Updated
Greece recorded a historically high performance in 2025 in both visitor arrivals and tourism revenues, according to a Bank of Greece announcement on Tuesday, confirming the continuous upward trend in the sector for the third consecutive year, the Ministry of Tourism said.
In 2025 inbound travel traffic increased by 5.6% to 37.98 million visitors, compared to 35.95 million in 2024, according to central bank data.
Arrivals from European Union countries increased by 2.8%, while visitors from non-EU countries rose by 10%. The provisional data, however, does not include cruise ship passenger traffic.
Specifically, visitor numbers from Germany increased by 10.2% to 5.95 million, while visitors from France decreased by 0.5% to 1.98 million. Travel from Italy rose by 8.6% to 2.2 million visitors. In other countries, travel from the United Kingdom increased by 7.6% to 4.89 million visitors. Travel from the USA also increased by 0.2%, reaching 1.55 million visitors. Finally, travel from Russia amounted to 21,500 travellers.
Record revenues: €23 billion in 2025
In the year 2025, travel receipts recorded an increase of 9.4% compared to 2024 and amounted to €23.6 billion. This development was due to an increase of both receipts from residents of EU-27 countries by 6.1%, which amounted to €12.69 billion, and receipts from residents of other countries by 14.7%, which amounted to €9.89 billion.
More specifically, receipts from residents of euro area countries amounted to €9.8 billion, up by 4.0%, while receipts from residents of EU-27 countries outside the euro area increased by 14.1% to €2.8 billion.
In particular, receipts from Germany recorded an increase of 2.2% to €3.78 billion, as did receipts from France, which rose by 5.9% to €1.33 billion. Receipts from Italy were also up by 5.1% to €1.28 billion. Of the other countries, receipts from the United Kingdom rose by 18.5% to €3.74 billion, while receipts from the United States increased by 8.5% to €1.71 billion. Finally, receipts from Russia amounted to €23.8 million.
Ministry of Tourism: ‘The best year ever’
The Minister of Tourism, Olga Kefalogianni, described 2025 as the “best year ever” for the tourism sector, while she said that “the first data for 2026 create optimistic prospects, as another positive year for the sector is looming”.
The problems of Athens airport
Despite the overall positive picture in early January, an extensive communications problem was recorded at Athens International Airport, which caused significant delays and disruption to the flight schedule.
The issue arose when more than one radio frequency covering the airspace of the capital was affected by prolonged interference in the form of continuous “noise”.
As a result, hundreds of aircraft were diverted to airports in neighbouring countries, causing inconvenience to thousands of travellers and a chain effect on routes.The incident was attributed to the age of the technological equipment and a €300 million infrastructure modernisation plan has already been launched.
A few weeks later, on 19 February, air traffic controllers reported a temporary malfunction of the airport’s backup radar, reminiscent of a similar problem that occurred in August.
Additional sources • Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος