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At least 19 million tourists will visit Greece this year as shown by the data on the flights scheduled and seats booked. The local tourist market does not preclude the possibility of this figure increasing and the number of tourists who will visit the country exceeding 20 million, including cruise passengers.

In 2013, the tourists who spent their holiday in Greece numbered 17.9 million. Tourist companies forecast that 15 million tourists will visit the country during the high season (from June to September), which means that 125,000 people a day will arrive in Greece.

They also expect revenue growth in the tourism sector, from 11.9 billion in 2013 to 13 billion this year.

The good signs have driven the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) to revise its initial estimates for 2014 and to change them from 18.5 million tourists to 19 million tourists. The new data are the results from research conducted by the scientific department of the Association on the basis of this year’s scheduled airline seats from foreign countries to Greece.

"The other factors taken into account for the research were the scheduled flights, last year’s data on flights from regional airports, the increase of the influx of tourists in Athens by 750,000 arrivals and the retention of last year's levels of the number of tourists arriving by road network," said president of the Association Andreas Andreadis. The calculations took into account the forecasts for a reduction in the number of tourists from Russia by 5% and of those from Ukraine by about 50%.

The total increase in the number of scheduled airline seats and flights to regional airports in 2014 is 25% compared to last year. The flow of tourists to Athens will be 22% higher compared to 2013.

In real numbers, this means more than 3 million airline seats, i.e. 15.8 million airline seats in 2014 compared to 12.7 million seats last year. In particular, the expected increase is as follows: 122% in arrivals at Kalamata airport (173,000 seats this year compared to 78,000 last year), 85% in Mykonos (406,000 arrivals compared to 220,000 last year) and 84% in Skiathos (193,000 arrivals compared to 105,000 last year). The airports in Heraklion, Crete, with 3.82 million arrivals (a 17% increase), Rhodes with 3 million arrivals (a 14% increase) and Thessaloniki with 1.73 million arrivals (a 40% increase) are emerging as leading. It is expected that 1.58 million tourists will arrive in Kos, 1.46 million in Corfu and over 1.25 million in Hania, Crete.

According to the data on scheduled flights, the "golden trio" of the largest markets includes the United Kingdom, as the expected number of tourists who will arrive from it is 2.75 million (516,417 more than 2013), Russia with 2.43 million tourists (416,820 more than 2013) and Germany with 2.18 million tourists (406,647 more than last year).

The data for 2013 also show that Russians spend the most during their holiday in Greece, the average spending per person amounting to 990 euro. Next on the list are Swiss tourists with 961 euro, followed by British tourists with an average spending of 734 euro, Germans with 838 euro, Italians with about 623 euro, the tourists from the Czech Republic with 532 euro and Romanians with at least 435 per person.

The hottest day for air transport dispatchers seems to be 2 August when 760 aircraft will land in Greece with 148,765 tourists on board. The other day when there will be a high number of arrivals will be 27 July with 162 flights and 30,430 tourists. In Rhodes the busiest day will be 3 August when the local airport will welcome 163 aircraft and 30,752 tourists. In Mykonos, the days with increased air traffic will be 10, 17 and 24 August with 31 landings and 4,816 visitors. The big day in Hania will be 2 August with 71 landings and 12,905 tourists.