Greece Puts Brave Face on Tourism Despite Migrant Crisis Blight

According to data revealed by the Association of Hellenic Tourism Enterprises (SETE), more than 1.6 million foreign nationals have arrived to Greece's principal airports in the first quarter of 2016. That is a spike by 7.6 percent from last year. The association also estimates the country will welcome a record 27 million of tourists in 2016 — a much-sought respite for financially beleaguered Greece.

Xenophon Petropoulos, a Public Affairs & Communications Strategist at SETE told Sputnik:

"The latest data shows that we have increasing international arrivals from airlines. In the first quarter of the year they are nearly up by seven percent compared to the same period last year."

"What we're seeing is that the refugee/migration situation affects the perception of the destination. Of course we have a decline in specific destinations, such as the islands in the eastern Aegean, Lesbos for example. In general, in Greece as a whole, we still have positive signs that it's going to be a positive summer," Petropoulos told Sputnik.

"We have a decline of about 20 to 25 percent in Kos, but we believe this will change in the coming months. We're monitoring it every month."

Petropoulos told Sputnik that most of the destinations – Crete, the Ionian Islands, the rest of the Aegean Sea – are not badly affected, although there is a perception issue over the migrant crisis.

There was a 40 percent impact on people when they were asked if the refugee situation influenced their decision to book their holiday. We don’t have cancellations at the moment, rather a slowdown in the booking speed.

"The issue is about specific destinations located in the areas where they are getting the migrant flows. The latest data we have is that the flows are minimized [following the announcement of the EU-Turkey migrant deal]. We do not know if this is to do with the arrangement or the fact that they [migrants] are locked in Greece and they cannot go further within the European Union and so the flows are stopped because they cannot go somewhere else," Petropoulos told Sputnik.

Piraeus Problems

Greek daily Kathimerini reported Monday (May 23) that market research company Euromonitor said some cruise lines no longer stop in Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos island, which recorded a 90 percent plunge in reservations. In the Dodecanese archipelago, the island of Kos saw bookings plummet by 40 percent.

Cruise liners and tourists are reported to being put off by more than 1,400 migrants who are at the port of Piraeus, where strike action over its sale has also affected traffic.

"We have a problem there, we are getting a lot of assurances from the government that – as far as going deeper into the main tourist season – we are not going to have a problem. We will have to wait and see if we have a solution for these people," Petropoulos told Sputnik.

SETE's data also highlights how destinations that have experienced the influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa have been losing visitors over the past four months.

Unaffected parts of Greece, though, have been tallying gains in the double digits, partly because of political instability and terrorism in other erstwhile popular Mediterranean tourist destinations such as Turkey and Egypt.