Greece surpasses Hong Kong in global tourism ranking; 13th worldwide

Despite the fact that World Tourism Organization (WTO) has still not released official figures for the past year, Greece reportedly climbed to 13th place, internationally, ahead of Hong Kong.

Based on figures analyzed by "N" from announcements by relevant tourism authorities in individual countries, Greece's is now behind Japan, in 11th place, and Australia, in 12th place.

In a related development, the Bank of Greece (BoG) announced that in the first two-month period of the year, tourist arrivals increased by 7 percent, compared to the same period in 2018.

Although a decidedly off-season period, nevertheless, the trend bodes well for the coming high season. In absolute numbers, 1.164 million arrivals were recorded in the Jan-Feb 2019 period, up from 1.088 million in the corresponding period of 2018. On an even more positive note, travel revenues in the first two months of the year were up by 41.1 percent, compared to Jan-Feb. 2018, reaching 441 million euros.