ATHENS — Dependent on tourists for as much as 20 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 168.21 billion euros ($200.3 billion,) the sector took a brutal hit in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, falling 61 percent.

That was according to figures released by Eurostat, the European statistical agency which revealed that Greek suffered more than other countries because of a dependency on tourism as it tries to broaden its sources of income.

Eurostat said this drop was reflected in the number of nights spent in EU tourism accommodation establishments between April 2020 and March 2021, falling from 2.8 billion nights to 1.7 billion from April 2019-March 2020. 

Among the EU member-states with available data for the period under study, the highest decreases were recorded in Malta, where tourism fell 80 percent, then Spain at 78 percent, followed by Greece, Portugal and Hungary, reported the Chinese news agency Xinhua.