With Greece counting on tourism to rebound after a disappointing 2012 in which people stayed away in droves in the aftermath of protests, strikes and riots against austerity measures making it difficult to get around the country, officials said bookings from the United States are up 40 percent.
The report came from the head of the Hellenic-American Tourism Chamber, Giorgos Trivizas, the newspaper Kathimerini reported. Speaking at an event in Athens concerning the US travel market, Trivizas attributed the rise to the drop in hotel rates, an increase in flights from the US and a lessening of bad publicity that Greece had received in international media.
Arrivals from the US in 2012 declined for a fifth year to 373,800 in 2012, according to Bank of Greece data. The American market is seen as key because of the large Diaspora there but Greece’s tourism office rarely advertises or tries to promote itself there.
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