This year’s summer season tourism is expected to go well for Greece, despite the turmoil caused by the war in the Middle East in the global industry, Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings and online platform Booking.com, has said in an interview with Kathimerini.
Greece remains a safe destination in the minds of travelers and is among the markets that are favored, as tourists adjust their plans to the difficult geopolitical situation, he notes.
Fogel acknowledges that we can only speculate about when the war in Iran will end, but Booking.com recently announced its revised estimates for 2026, which are based on the assumption that the direct and indirect effects of the conflict will be visible until the end of June, with the recovery in bookings coming in the second half of the year.
Nevertheless, the platform’s CEO says he is pleased with summer bookings so far, noting that one of the “side effects” of this crisis is favoring European destinations, since the increased cost of airline tickets discourages vacations to far-flung destinations and leads to an increase in intra-European travel, which, in turn favors Greece.
“People who might have wanted to go to Jordan may now prefer Greece. And this could benefit the Greek tourism economy,” he says.
