According to a report published by the Bank of Greece (BoG), only 36,1 thousand arrivals from Russia were recorded in Greece in 2022. This is 16,2 times less than it was in the pre-pandemic 2019. The flow of tourists from the Russian Federation to Greece in 2022 decreased by 3,3 times compared to 2021 (then there was direct air traffic between the countries).
Following the fall of the number of tourist visits, income from Russian tourists also fell. If in 2019, Russian visitors brought 433 million Euros to Greek tourism, then in 2022 this figure was only 41,4 million (a decrease of 10,5 times).
As tour operators say, interest in traveling to Greece has increased slightly this year compared to last year.
Tez Tour notes, first of all, this is due to the emergence of additional options of regular flights for different destinations - Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, Chalkidiki, Peloponnese, Santorini, Mykonos, etc - with changes in third countries.
As per Space Travel, taking into account connecting time, the flight from Russia to Greece will take an average of about 10 hours. The main transit points are Istanbul, Dubai, Belgrade, and Cairo.
In addition, the tour operators themselves are looking for more comfortable logistics schemes concerning connections and flights. Thus, the tour operator Pac Group took a block of seats on Aegean Airlines flights from Yerevan to Thessaloniki and Rhodes.
The tour operator Pegas Touristik will transport tourists to Crete via Antalya from May 26: flights are scheduled from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Perm and Yekaterinburg.
Ambotis Holidays offers the following scheme: by plane to Bodrum, and from the ports of the Aegean coast of Turkey by ferry to the Greek islands of Kos and Rhodes.
The same “airplane + ferry” option is also offered by other market participants: Space Travel, Russian Express and Vedi Group.
