South Aegean: “Surge” of tourist traffic in July

July saw a leap in arrivals to the islands of the South Aegean, achieving the highest rate of increase recorded in the current tourist season on a monthly basis compared to 2019. In particular, in the month of July alone, there were over a million direct international arrivals, thus surpassing July of the record year 2019 by 20% at the regional level.

65% increase in arrivals to Santorini

In particular, as announced by the South Aegean Initiative for Tourism, which is made up of local government bodies and the productive classes, the growth rates per international airport are 13% for Rhodes, 8% for Kos, 31% for Mykonos and 65% for Santorini.

There were days in July that were unprecedented for the international airports of the South Aegean, which received record numbers of visitors.

As an example, the Diagoras airport of Rhodes welcomed around 40,000 international passengers on weekends, which are peak days, without any particular problems.

As the correspondent of state news agency APE – MPE reported, the airport of Kos served more than 10,000 visitors from abroad a day and the smaller airports of Mykonos and Santorini more than 6,000 and 7,000, respectively.

However, since the beginning of the tourist season on March 27 to the end of July, the destinations of the South Aegean are continuously performing higher than the last normal year by an average that reaches 13%.

Over 3 million visitors from abroad had visited the Cyclades and the Dodecanese up to July 31, roughly the number that arrived at the airports of the South Aegean during the entire tourist season last year.

Great Britain remains the largest market for Rhodes, surpassing Germany, which is in second place, while the Italians made their presence felt on the “island of the Knights” in July, emerging as the fourth market after the Poles.

Accordingly, Germany remains the most popular market in Kos, followed by Great Britain, with the Italians entering the top five markets for the island of Hippocrates.

For the island of the winds, Mykonos, the Italians recorded an even greater share, remaining the first market for the island, with the French also registering an increase, rising to second place.

Finally, and for Santorini, the Italian market was in first place, surpassing, for the first time this year, the British market.