German visitors will easily exceed 4 million this year

Six in every 10 rooms at a four-star hotel at Kolymbia, on the island of Rhodes, are already booked for the whole 2018 season. Half of those bookings are from the German market, the unit's director told Kathimerini. Demand from Germany is so high this year, he added, that any discounts offered do not exceed 10 percent.

It therefore comes as no surprise that pretty much the entire Greek tourism industry traveled to Berlin this week for the ITB tourism fair, Europe's biggest. For Greek tourism, the German market is this year expected to fetch revenues of over 3 billion euros. Takings from German visitors last year grew 31.9 percent on an annual basis to reach 2.54 billion euros, Bank of Greece figures showed. This year, according to data from the GFK tourism market research institute, German tour operators are reporting a 40 percent increase in bookings for Greek destinations...