The factors threatening this tourism season

Alpha Bank warns in a report on tourism in 2019 that the risks associated with the economic slowdown in Greece’s main markets, the Brexit uncertainty and concerns over trade wars and geopolitical tensions are leading to travelers from certain countries exhibiting more conservative behavior. The World Tourism Organization also believes that this behavior is already quite obvious.

The expected mild slowdown in the European Union growth rate from 1.9 percent last year to 1.5 percent in 2019 will likely have a negative impact on the growth rate in the demand for tourism services.

European Central Bank figures confirm that growth in per capita income in Germany is increasingly being directed toward savings and not toward services such as traveling. The Germans, a key market for Greek tourism, were seen to have reduced their bookings for holidays abroad this summer by about 2 percent by the end of last month.

Even so, regardless of international conditions, the long-term trend of the Greek tourism product remains steadily positive, Alpha notes. For tourism’s growth potential to be realized, though, Greece needs to develop alternative forms such as conference tourism, environmental tourism, agritourism etc, and improve the value-for-money ratio.

Source: ekathimerini.com