Greece was voted last week top tourism destination by readers of Global Traveler Magazine, the ultimate source for news, reviews, and travel guides for luxury business travelers.
Greece was honored as the Best Tourism Destination in Global Traveler’s 18th Annual GT Tested Reader Survey Awards which were announced on December 1. The American travel magazine placed Greece at #1 with Italy in 2nd place, Spain 3rd, Ireland 4th, and South Africa 5th.
It is the first time Greece has been honored with first pace in this specific category at the Tested Reader Survey Awards.
“Travel to Greece as soon as you can”
“As travel begins to return after a particularly challenging time for the industry, it’s really an extraordinary honor to acknowledge those providers that are the best of the best, and who showed strength and resilience in the face of unprecedented adversity,” said Francis X. Gallagher, Global Traveler publisher and CEO.
“We also thank our readers who vote yearly in the survey. Our readers resumed travel as soon as they could; for them, it’s part of their DNA, and they know and voted for the true stars of the travel industry. Here’s hoping for an even stronger 2022! Congratulations!”
The publisher of Global Traveler noted for Greece “whether it’s your first or your 20th visit to the country, be certain that Greece will be on the destination list where you can travel as fast as possible.”
For the 18th consecutive year, Global Traveler conducted its GT Tested Reader Survey, asking frequent luxury travelers to name the best in a variety of travel-related categories. More than 22,000 people responded. Global Traveler’s inaugural awards were celebrated in 2004.
The survey honors airlines, hotels, loyalty programs, and travel-related products in more than 80 categories. GT’s distinguished readers vote for their favorites in the world of travel in an open-ended survey running in the magazine and online. The 2021 survey ran Dec. 14, 2020—Sept. 30, 2021.
Global Traveler has an average circulation of 550,000 readers. Fifty percent of them consist of private and company executives who travel via air an average of nine times within the U.S. annually and 11 times within the last three years to international destinations. Over 55{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} of the readers travel annually to 60 overnight 4- and 5-star hotels.
The ceremony for the awards will take place in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, December 14, and the Greek award will be received by the Director of the Greek National Tourism Organization for the U.S.A. and Canada, Konstantinos Charokopos.
Greece’s tourism rebounds
The Bank of Greece announced in October that more than 8.6 million tourists visited Greece from January to August this year. The bank reported that this is a 79{e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} jump from last year’s visitors in the same time frame.
The tourism industry in Greece is on the upswing with a 135 {e9f0aada585b9d73d0d08d3c277fd760092386ec23cac37d50f4b8cd792b062a} increase in earnings from 2020. The revenue for the first eight months of 2021 totaled 6.6 billion euros.
Greece welcomed more than two million visitors to its shores during just the months of July and August of 2021 — more than any other European nation — marking real success in its vital tourism industry despite the pandemic that is still raging across the world.