ATHENS – The growing interest of Romanian travelers in Greece, despite the ‘brake’ of the pandemic during the previous two summers, becomes even more apparent this year with the demand reaching such levels that travel agents estimate that 2022 will be better than 2019. This was the message they conveyed to Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias, who is on a two-day visit to Bucharest, making contacts with tourism professionals and journalists.

“In a meeting I had with the Romanian federation of tour agencies, they confirmed to me that Greece will be the number one tourist destination this year for their summer holidays. Travelers from Romania will travel first of all to Greece this year,” Kikilias stressed and added: “This is a result of a very hard and constant work throughout the year, but also of a great collective and overall effort made in cooperation with the Tourism Ministry, the Greek National Tourist Organisation (GNTO), Marketing Greece and of all professionals in the country. We must be ready and organised to welcome the people and offer them a unique tourist experience so that we can have them with us again next year.”

Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the vice-president of the Federation of Tour Operators of Romania pointed out that after two summers with restrictions and strict healthy measures, this season opens with more freedom for Romanian tourists who show even greater interest in Greece and it is very likely that we will see higher arrivals than those of 2019.

He also stressed that Kikilias’s visit to Bucharest has a very strong impact on Romanian public opinion. As he said “the impact will be greater than advertisements that would cost a lot of money”, explaining that for the Romanians “the presence of the Greek Minister of Tourism here is very important”.

“The first destination for those who travel by road is Thassos and Samothrace. These islands are now full of Romanians. However, they generally travel along the entire route from Alexandroupolis to Katerini and of course Halkidiki. Over the last years, they choose other destinations such as Corfu, Lefkada, Parga, Evia, etc. But apart from those who travel by road, we must say that there are many who go to the Greek islands by air. In the summer, 10-15 charter flights are launched from 10 cities in Romania,” he pointed out.

As it was noted by the head of the GNTO office in Bucharest, George Stafylakis, about 80% of travelers from Romania arrive in Greece by road. In 2019, the number of Romanian tourists in Greece reached 1,400,000.