The month of August shows a 100% improvement over last year for tourist destinations in the South Aegean, with double the numbers of direct international arrivals compared to last year being recorded across the five international airports on the islands of Rhodes, Kos, Karpathos, Mykonos and Santorini.

According to data from the South Aegean Tourism Initiative, international arrivals on the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands totaled 833,720, compared to 421,708 recorded in August of 2020.

The direct international arrivals per airport during the month of August for both years of the pandemic are as follows:

The data shows that the largest percentage increase from one year to the next was recorded in Karpathos (346%), followed by Santorini (237%), Rhodes (98%), Mykonos (83%) and Kos (79%)

More than two million direct international arrivals to the South Aegean

During the summer of the second year of the pandemic, more than 14,500 aircraft flew to the islands of the South Aegean, bringing more than two million passengers, which amounts to one-third of the total arrivals in Greece.

Counting those passengers arriving via Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos, a total of 155,394 travelers for the months of June and July alone (57,625 in June and 97,769 in July), international arrival figures for the South Aegean’s five international airports are at 2,082,993 for the second year of the pandemic. It should be noted that this total does not include passengers who traveled to the islands from Eleftherios Venizelos Airport in August, the month with the highest passenger traffic; nor does this include passengers traveling by ferry.

Main markets per island, during the month of August

The German market remains the strongest for tourists who visited the South Aegean as a whole during the month of August. With 181,162 tourist visits recorded, Germany earns first place on Rhodes and Kos, third place on Santorini and forth place on Mykonos.

In Rhodes during the month of August, second place among international visitors went to the British, up from eighth place in July. The British market also showed an increase in Kos and Mykonos, up to third place, while in Santorini British visitors were in fourth place, compared to fifth the previous month.

Figures for Polish visitors have stayed strong on Rhodes and Kos, where they are in third and fourth place respectively, as well as on Santorini, where Poles remain in the top five nationalities to visit the island.

The top five for Rhodes is as follows: German, British, Polish, Italian and French tourists, with the Dutch coming in a very close sixth. Regarding Kos, the island of Hippocrates, it is the Germans, Dutch, British, Polish and Swiss who make up the five largest foreign nationalities to visit.

On both Mykonos and Santorini, the Italians and French are in first and second place; the British, the Germans, the Swiss and the Spanish complete the top six groups for Mykonos, while for Santorini, it’s the Germans, the British, the Poles, the Swiss and the Austrians who stand in third to sixth place, respectively.

This article was previously published in Greek at moneyreview.gr.