ATHENS – For Greece tourism 2022 has so far been a banner year and likely to break records and visitors from the United Kingdom have been the biggest part of the push to come during the waning COVID-19 pandemic.

Eleni Skarveli, Director of the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) for the UK and Ireland, praised the British for continuing to come, saying the UK has overtaken Germany to become the country’s top market.

Skarveli spoke to Travel Weekly at the tourist board’s inaugural awards ceremony held at Six Park Place hotel in London which recognized tour operators and Greek islands that were inundated.

“It is great to see so many Brits coming to Greece,” she said. “More than three million British travelers have visited the country this year, which brings it close to its 2019 levels and makes it our number one source market,” she said.

“Germans seem to have been more cautious than Brits when it has come to traveling post-pandemic,” she said, although the Coronavirus hasn’t gone away and in Greece killed 134 people in the recent week.

“Despite problems with airports, the war in Ukraine and rising energy costs, British travelers really wanted to travel this year and they wanted to come to Greece. We are delighted to welcome them,” she also said.

In October, the GNTO showed off its sustainable travel platform to educate British travel agents, tour operators and consumers about holidays in Greece in the autumn and off-peak period as tourists keep pouring in during November.