Tourism revenues drop €14 bln euros

The Greek economy's earnings from travel receipts from abroad this year are down 14 billion euros on last year's - slightly better than the estimates of the government and the market.

Bank of Greece figures show that tourism revenues amounted to €4.035 billion in the first 10 months of the year, against €17.56 in January-October 2019 and €18.2 billion for the whole of last year, which was an all-time high. The most optimistic market forecasts had seen takings of €3.5 billion for 2020 in its entirety.

Given that Greece, as well as most countries that foreign visitors come from, has been in lockdown since early November, it becomes clear that the results for the full 12 months of 2020 won't differ much from the performance of the first 10 months.

In any case this is a huge blow, though not unforeseeable. Comparison with last year's January-October travel service...