Domestic and Balkan travelers boost Thessaloniki tourism

The number of Greek travelers to the northern port city picked up in 2016, to 1,226,544 overnight stays, up by 6.83 percent, while foreign visitors made 1,083,073 stays marking a 4.16 percent rise.

Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and the US were the leading markets in 2016. The number of Russian visitors meanwhile remained steady following a two-year dive. The number of visitors from the UK grew by 23.79 percent as did those from Israel after a marked decline in the previous two years. Thessaloniki aims to take advantage of the momentum, up by 7.35 percent, with Aegean Airlines offering direct flights to Thessaloniki from Tel Aviv as of May 29.

On the downside, according to a GBR Consulting study, despite the positive figures in the number of overnight stays, Thessaloniki is still far behind its competitors in terms of revenue per available room (RevPAR) at 47.35 euros, lower compared to 10 similarly sized European cities – Antwerp, Birmingham, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Budapest, Hamburg, Manchester and Salzburg. At the same time, the increase in average room rate was minimal at 0.6 percent.