Greek tourism has already begun seeing the first signs of the effects of a financial crisis, with tourist arrivals down by 1.4 percent in the 10-month period from January to October this year.

According to a report by the Institute for Tourist Research and Forecasts (ITEP) issued on Thursday, most competitor-countries of Greece suffered declines during this period with the exception of Turkey and Croatia which recorded increases. Tourist arrivals in Spain fell 1.3 percent, in Italy were down by 1.0 percent and in Cyprus eased 0.6 percent during the 10-month period.

ITEP said the decline in tourist arrivals figures, which was measured by air transport arrivals, reflected mainly a negative trend in the last three months of the survey from August to October, while it stressed it was even more worrying the fact that major tourism regions of the country such as Crete, Dodecanese islands, Ionian islands suffered more.

ITEP said it expected the tourism sector to witness an even more difficult year in 2009, while it noted that despite a decline in tourist arrivals, tourism foreign exchange inflows grew by 4.0 percent in the 10-month period.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2008)