Key SEE tourist destinations hit by global turmoil

07/09/2009

The global economic crisis has had a negative impact on tourism in Greece and other regional destinations this year.

(Various sources -- 21/07/09 - 01/09/09)

Croatia's tourism industry earned 7.5 billion euros last year. [Getty Images]

The number of foreign nationals visiting Albania in the first seven months of the year grew by more than a third as compared to the same period last year, but the tourism industries of other Southeast European (SEE) nations felt the pangs of the global downturn.

Close to 1.6 million visitors entered Albania between January and July this year, marking a 36% rise year-on-year, the country's tourism ministry reported on August 20th. Almost 90% of them cited vacation as the purpose of their trip to the Balkan nation, the ministry of tourism reported. Mostly all were of the foreign tourists were European citizens, with Kosovo, followed by Macedonia and Montenegro accounting for a significant share, statistics showed.

Tourist revenues for the first seven months totalled 212m euros. In 2008, Albania's tourism and travel industry earned 358m euros, accounting for 4.1% of GDP.

Later in August, the finance ministry said it would set aside 1.5m euros in next year's budget for a special project to encourage the further development of tourism in the country's south. The funds would be earmarked for soft loans to families and companies interested in investing in the tourist sector.

The World Economic Forum's (WEF) latest travel and tourism competitiveness index placed Albania 90th among 133 countries in the world, behind all other SEE nations covered by the report, except Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

With its 21st position on the global list, Cyprus was ranked highest among the SEE countries in the WEF study.

However, the situation on the Mediterranean island, whose income from tourism accounts for up to 12% of GDP, appears glum, according to statistics. Cyprus recorded a 10.9% drop in tourist arrivals from January until the end of July as compared to the same period last year. With holidaymakers generally spending less, Cyprus's tourism revenues for the first seven months of 2009 fell 15.5% year-on-year to an estimated 798m euros, down from nearly 945m euros in 2008.

Greece, whose economy is facing its first contraction in 16 years, also felt the pangs of the crisis. A major European vacation site, Greece draws 15 million tourists, on average annually.

Deviating from the regional trend, the number of foreign nationals visiting Albania in the first seven months of 2009 grew. [Getty Images]

Tourism accounts for nearly a fifth of Greece's GDP of over 240 billion euros and almost 20% of all jobs in the country.

"The tourism sector will feel the full impact from the dramatic slowdown of economic activity in key source markets for Greek tourism such as Germany, Italy and the UK, with most of the impact in the last two quarters of the year," the National Bank of Greece said in a report in June.

Two Greek organisations -- Research Institute for Tourism and the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises -- said in August that the number of holidaymakers arriving at the country's airports was down 8.6% since January, compared to the same period last year.

The sector's revenues for the first half of the year fell by 14.7% to just over 3 billion euros, statistics also showed.

In a bid to boost their tourism industries, some of the countries in the region have offered tourist packages at good prices, lower visa fees, and hotel rates to attract more tourists.

Some, like Croatia, launched promotion campaigns.

Preliminary results of this summer season in Croatia released in late August showed that the country's tourism industry was not hit as badly by the global turmoil as initially anticipated.

According to the tourism ministry's analysis, the number of foreign tourists visiting this year shrank by 5% compared to 2008 and the number of local holidaymakers dropped by 11%, translating into a loss of 500m euros in revenues – much less than the previously predicted 25% loss.

In 2008, a record season, Croatia's tourism industry earned 7.5 billion euros.

"The tourism sector will feel the full impact from the dramatic slowdown of economic activity in key source markets," said the National Bank of Greece. [Getty Images]

Citing the good weather conditions in the country, "the summer season might last well until the end of October. It is better than we expected," Croatian Tourism Minister Damir Bajs told a tourism conference in Dubrovnik.

Bulgaria saw foreign tourist arrivals fall 12.7% year-on-year in June. Although July was slightly better, with a decline of just 5.8%, many hotels in the Balkan nation's overbuilt Black Sea resorts were half empty. A Sofia New Agency report on August 19th said 204 hotels on the country's southern coast were up for sale.

Industry officials insist the government should consider ways to boost the sector. Some have proposed the introduction of tax relief for Bulgarian tourists who have chosen to spend their holiday at resorts at home.

"This is a way to bring the grey economy to light," Donka Sokolova, chair of the Bulgarian Association of Tourism Agencies, said last month.

Despite the global economic crisis, Turkey recorded a 1.1% increase year-on-year in the number of foreign visitors to the country during the first seven months of 2009. German tourists accounted for nearly 16.5% of all 14.93 million foreign citizens who entered the country during between January 1st and July 31st. Russian, Bristish and Bulgarian holidaymakers came next.

After two months of decline, the number of foreign tourist arrivals to Turkey was up 6.32% year-on-year in July, the tourism ministry reported.

Despite the upturn, Turkey's tourism revenues shrank 10% in the first half of the year and are expected to reach just over 15 billion euros for 2009, down from close to 15.5 billion euros last year.

SETimes correspondent Natasa Radic in Zagreb contributed to this report