ATHENS – Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias in an interview with TV ACTION on Friday referred to the optimistic forecast for the next tourism season, the opening to new markets and the promotion of new destinations as a result of the government’s strategy for the the extension of the tourism season.

Kikilias stated that 2023 has began with the best prospects noting that “in the first 19 days of February 2023 the passenger traffic at the Athens International Airport was 2.8 pct up compared to January 2023 and 5 pct up in comparison with the same period in 2019.

Referring to the success in 2022, he said that the travel revenues were close to those of 2019 despite the loss of four major markets, those of Russia and Ukraine due to the war and China and Australia’s due to the restriction measures for the pandemic.

Finally, he said that hotel and other accomodation occupancies in popular destinations are at 100 pct for the holiday of Clean Monday.