Greece expects to host about 900 thousand Russian tourists in 2017

“Greece expects to host 850-880 thousand Russian tourists by the end of 2017”, - said the Director of the representative office of the national Greece tourist organization in Russia and CIS countries Polikarpos Efstatieu. "The current year will end with a significant plus and we are very happy with it. We believe that it will be possible to reach the number of 850-880 thousand Russian tourists and possibly, taking into account the visitors of cruises, even surpass these figures", - he said in an interview. He added that the number of Russian tourists arriving to Greece from January to August by direct flights was 634.6 thousand people, which is 8.3% more than in the same period of the last year. P. Efstatieu is assured that by the end of the year the overall growth will reach 10-12%. According to him, Russia is in the TOP 5 of incoming markets for Greece and is on the fifth line after Britain, Germany, Italy and France. If we talk about organized tours, the most popular destinations for Russians this year were Crete, Chalkidiki, Rhodes, Kerkyra, Zakynthos, Kos and Peloponnese, In addition, Russian tourists recently discovered Cyclades, Kavala, Thassos and other regions of the country. According to the consulate in St. Petersburg and Novorossiysk, this year Greece issued for Russians 35% more visas than during the same period of the last year.