Foreign tourist arrival rates across the South Aegean islands remained high during the first twelve days of September; from September 1 to September 12, more than 2000 airplanes flying in from abroad landed at airports in the Cyclades and the Dodecanese, carrying more than 270,000 international passengers.

According to the South Aegean Initiative for Tourism, 12,209 of these visitors chose Rhodes as their destination. Adding this to the number of passengers the island had already received since the start of this tourist season brings a total figure for Rhodes of approximately one million tourists, which means that the Dodecanese island is approaching its goal of doubling the 2020 arrival numbers.

Kos and Karpathos also maintained highly satisfying arrival numbers. More than 62,000 passengers from abroad came to Kos at the beginning of this month, bringing the total number of arrivals to that island to approximately half a million. Tourist traffic at the airport on Karpathos remains reminiscent of August, with 5,000 arrivals over the first 10 days of September.

The current tourist flow is encouraging for Santorini as well; in all of September last year, only 33,853 visitors arrived via direct international flights, whereas figures for the first 12 days of September 2021 have already surpassed that mark by more than 10,000, reaching 45,057 arrivals as of September 12.

Mykonos‘ September figures were also exceptional: arrivals over the first 10 days equaled the total for all of September 2020, at 30,620.

It should be noted that all the figures listed here do not include those passengers who traveled to the islands by ferry or who found their own way to South Aegean destinations on domestic flights departing from the Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos.

This article was previously published in Greek at moneyreview.gr.