Key takeaways
- Foreign visitors spent €56,724 million in Italy and €23,627 million in Greece in 2025 (Eurostat bop_c6_a), figures that match the Bank of Italy and the Bank of Greece.
- Per resident on January 1, 2025, Greece took €2,278 in travel receipts and Italy €962, a 2.4-times lead for Greece that mirrors Italy's 2.4-times lead in total receipts (derived).
- Italy's travel surplus was €22,671 million and Greece's €20,288 million, so Italy's was only 12% larger despite 2.4 times the receipts.
- Italians spent 60 cents abroad for every euro foreign visitors spent in Italy; Greeks spent 14 cents, which leaves Greece a surplus of 8.1% of GDP against Italy's 1.0% (derived).
- Greece recorded 15.1 nights in registered accommodation per resident in 2025; Italy recorded 9.1 on its new basis and 8.2 on the old one (Eurostat tour_occ_ninat, derived).
- Italy's 14.87% rise in Eurostat nights for 2025 compares two coverages, because 2025 adds private non-business rentals and 2024 does not; ISTAT gives 6.0% on a recalculated 2024 and the old basis implies about 3.2%.
- Visitor counts do not compare: Greece's 43.3 million includes cruise passengers, and Italy's 61.4 million overnight travelers excludes 30.8 million same-day visitors.
- A satellite-account share of Greek GDP and whether Greek nights include private short-term rentals could not be verified, so neither is compared here.
In 2025 foreign visitors spent €56.7 billion in Italy and €23.6 billion in Greece, according to the Bank of Italy and the Bank of Greece. Italy's travel receipts were 2.4 times Greece's. Divide each figure by the number of people who live in the country and the order reverses. Greece took €2,278 per resident and Italy €962, so Greece's receipts per head were also 2.4 times Italy's.
The two countries are the same kind of destination at very different sizes. Italy has 58.9 million residents and a large economy in which tourism is one industry among many. Greece has 10.4 million residents, and its visitor spending equals 9.5% of its GDP against Italy's 2.5%. The second difference is outbound travel. Italians spent €34.1 billion on trips abroad in 2025. Greeks spent €3.3 billion. That gap almost cancels the receipts gap, and it leaves Italy's travel surplus only 12% larger than Greece's.
This article compares only like with like: balance-of-payments travel receipts from both central banks, which Eurostat also publishes on one harmonized basis, the same receipts per resident, outbound spending, and nights in registered accommodation from one Eurostat table. It does not rank visitor counts, because each country counts them with its own survey. It builds on our five-country comparison of tourism in 2025, where Greece already showed the second-highest receipts per resident of the five.
| Series | Measure | Year | Italy | Greece |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Receipts (credit) | 2023 | 51,687 | 20,593 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Receipts (credit) | 2024 | 54,213 | 21,593 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Receipts (credit) | 2025 | 56,724 | 23,627 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Spending abroad (debit) | 2023 | 31,586 | 2,431 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Spending abroad (debit) | 2024 | 33,006 | 2,805 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Spending abroad (debit) | 2025 | 34,053 | 3,339 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Balance | 2023 | 20,102 | 18,162 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Balance | 2024 | 21,207 | 18,787 |
| Eurostat bop_c6_a | Balance | 2025 | 22,671 | 20,289 |
| National central bank | Receipts | 2025 | 56,700 | 23,626.8 |
| National central bank | Spending abroad | 2025 | 34,100 | 3,339.0 |
| National central bank | Balance | 2025 | 22,700 | 20,287.8 |
Receipts: Italy earns 2.4 times as much
Travel receipts are what nonresident visitors spend inside a country: lodging, food, shopping, local transport, tickets. Both central banks measure them for the balance of payments, and both leave out international fares, which sit in a separate transport line. The Bank of Italy states the exclusion in its survey release. That shared definition is why receipts are the safest single figure for comparing the two countries.
The Bank of Italy's international tourism survey, released on June 26, 2026, puts foreign travelers' spending in Italy at €56.7 billion in 2025, up 4.6% on 2024. The Bank of Greece's final release of May 7, 2026 puts Greece's travel receipts at €23,626.8 million, up 9.4%, or €2,034.5 million, on 2024. Eurostat's balance-of-payments table bop_c6_a, updated on October 2, 2026, carries the same values on the harmonized basis: €56,724 million for Italy and €23,627 million for Greece. The national and European figures match at the precision each bank publishes: to €0.1 billion for Italy and within €0.2 million for Greece. Our breakdown of Italy's €56.7 billion and its surplus covers the Italian series in more detail.
Greece grew faster. Its receipts rose 14.7% between 2023 and 2025 on the Eurostat series, from €20,593 million. Italy's rose 9.7%, from €51,687 million. In 2025 alone Greece added €2.0 billion and Italy €2.5 billion. Italy added more in euros, Greece twice as much in percentage terms.
The Greek figure that circulated first was a preliminary one. Euronews reported €23.6 billion on February 24, 2026, from the Bank of Greece's provisional data, and the May final release kept the same total. The primary source is the Bank of Greece's release.
Per resident, Greece leads by the same 2.4 times
Receipts per resident are our arithmetic. We divide each country's 2025 receipts by its population on January 1, 2025, from Eurostat's demo_pjan table: 58,943,464 people in Italy and 10,372,335 in Greece. The result is €962 per Italian resident and €2,278 per Greek resident. Greece's figure is 2.37 times Italy's, almost the mirror of Italy's 2.40-times lead in total receipts.
Set against output, the gap is wider. Eurostat's 2025 GDP at current prices is €2,265.0 billion for Italy and €249.7 billion for Greece, the Greek figure provisional. Travel receipts equal 2.5% of Italy's GDP and 9.5% of Greece's, also our arithmetic. Visitor spending is close to four times as large a part of the Greek economy as of the Italian one.
Population hardly moves these figures from year to year. Eurostat counts 58,971,230 Italian residents on January 1, 2024 and 58,943,464 a year later, and 10,375,764 and 10,372,335 in Greece. Both populations fell by less than 0.1%, so per-resident receipts grew at almost exactly the rate of total receipts, 4.7% in Italy and 9.5% in Greece in 2025, our arithmetic.
These per-resident figures say how much visitor money arrives for each person who lives in the country. They do not say how crowded either country feels, because a national average hides where the money is spent. Neither central bank publishes receipts per resident by region on a basis we could compare here, so this article stays at national level.
| Measure | Italy | Greece | Greece ÷ Italy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Population, January 1, 2025 | 58,943,464 | 10,372,335 | 0.18 |
| Travel receipts per resident (€) | 962 | 2,278 | 2.37 |
| Spending abroad per resident (€) | 578 | 322 | 0.56 |
| Travel balance per resident (€) | 385 | 1,956 | 5.09 |
| Spending abroad per €1 of receipts (€) | 0.60 | 0.14 | 0.24 |
| Travel receipts, % of GDP | 2.5 | 9.5 | 3.78 |
| Travel balance, % of GDP | 1.0 | 8.1 | 8.12 |
The balance: Greece keeps 86 cents of every euro
Receipts are half the travel account. The other half is what residents spend on their own trips abroad. Eurostat's bop_c6_a records Italian residents' travel spending abroad at €34,053 million in 2025, which matches the Bank of Italy's €34.1 billion, up 3.2%. Greek residents spent €3,339 million, up 19.0% on €2,805 million.
The net result is the travel balance. Italy's was €22,671 million in 2025 on the Eurostat series. The Bank of Italy rounds it to €22.7 billion and describes it as 1.0% of GDP. Greece's was €20,287.8 million in the Bank of Greece release and €20,289 million in Eurostat's table, a rounding difference. Italy earns 2.4 times Greece's receipts, yet its surplus is only 1.12 times Greece's.
The reason is the ratio of spending abroad to receipts. For every euro foreign visitors spent in Italy in 2025, Italian residents spent 60 cents abroad. For Greece the ratio was 14 cents, so Greece kept 86 cents of every euro of receipts as surplus. Per resident, Italians spent €578 abroad and Greeks €322, our arithmetic. The Greek balance per resident was €1,956, five times Italy's €385. Measured as a share of GDP, Greece's travel surplus was 8.1% and Italy's 1.0%.
Over two years the balances moved almost in step. Italy's rose 12.8% between 2023 and 2025, from €20,102 million, and Greece's 11.7%, from €18,162 million, on the Eurostat series. The routes differ. Italy's receipts grew 9.7% and its spending abroad 7.8%, so the surplus widened slowly from a large base. Greece's receipts grew 14.7% and its spending abroad 37.4%, from €2,431 million to €3,339 million, so a fast-growing outbound bill absorbed part of a fast-growing inbound one. All growth rates here are our arithmetic.
Two caveats apply. Greek residents' spending abroad grew much faster than receipts in 2025, 19.0% against 9.4%. If that continues, the 14-cent ratio will rise. And a surplus is an accounting result. It measures money flowing in against money flowing out for travel, before the cost of the imports that tourism itself uses, from fuel to food.
Nights in registered accommodation, with Italy's break shown both ways
Eurostat's tour_occ_ninat table counts nights spent in hotels, holiday and other short-stay accommodation, and campsites, the classes NACE I551 to I553. It is the one place where Italian and Greek nights appear side by side. The table was last updated on October 12, 2026.
Greece recorded 156,347,283 nights in 2025, up 2.2% on 152,944,662. Nonresident guests accounted for 131,051,335 of them, or 83.8%, and Greek residents for 25,295,948. Per resident, Greece had 15.1 registered nights in 2025, our arithmetic, of which 12.6 were spent by foreign guests.
Greek nights are growing much more slowly than Greek receipts. Registered nights rose 3.9% in 2024 and 2.2% in 2025, and nonresident nights 4.1% and 2.2%, our arithmetic on the same table. Over the same two years receipts rose 4.9% and 9.4%. The gap between the two lines is spending per night, which the central bank surveys measure directly and which the next section compares. Greek residents' own nights in Greek accommodation rose 2.1% in 2025, to 25,295,948.
Italy's 2025 break
Italy's 2025 figure in the same table is 535,463,245 nights, against 466,158,045 in 2024. Read straight, that is a 14.87% increase. It is not a like-for-like change. From 2025 ISTAT includes private rentals run on a non-business basis for the first time, and Eurostat's 2024 value stays on the old basis with no break flag in the data. ISTAT reports the 2025 total as 535.5 million and a 6.0% rise against a recalculated 2024. On the old coverage ISTAT's 2025 total is 481 million, about 3.2% above 2024, our arithmetic. Our comparison of Italy and Spain on nights sets out the three Italian totals and why none of them should be mixed with another.
On the new basis Italy had 9.1 registered nights per resident in 2025, our arithmetic. On the old basis it had 8.2. Either way Greece had about 1.7 to 1.8 times as many per resident. The gap is widest for foreign guests. Italy's 301,619,611 foreign nights on the new basis come to 5.1 per resident, against Greece's 12.6. Domestic tourism runs the other way. Italian residents spent 233,843,634 nights in Italian accommodation, 4.0 per resident, while Greek residents spent 2.4 nights per resident in Greek accommodation.
The foreign share shows the same pattern. On the new basis 56.3% of Italy's 2025 nights were spent by foreign guests. ISTAT gives 55.3% for the old coverage. Greece's share was 83.8%. Italy's accommodation sector serves a large home market. Greece's depends on visitors from abroad.
We could not confirm whether Greece's Eurostat nights include private short-term rentals. Eurostat's national metadata for Greece, with reference year 2023, says occupancy data come from a census of hotels and campsites in the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels register and of short-stay establishments in ELSTAT's register, with no size threshold. It does not say whether private rooms or platform listings fall inside that register. If they do not, Greece's registered nights understate total stays more than Italy's new-basis figure does.
Survey nights point the same way
Both central banks also count nights in their own border surveys, which cover every overnight stay, including with friends and family, in second homes and in unregistered rentals. The Bank of Italy counts 392.8 million foreign nights in 2025, 1.30 times Eurostat's foreign nights in registered accommodation on the new basis. The Bank of Greece counts 244.7 million, 1.87 times Eurostat's Greek figure. These ratios are our arithmetic across different series, and the surveys differ in design. They are consistent with a larger share of Greek visitor nights falling outside the registered accommodation count. They do not prove it.
| Measure | Italy, new basis | Italy, old basis | Greece |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total nights, 2025 (million) | 535.5 | 481 | 156.3 |
| Total nights, 2024 (million) | 466.2 | 466.2 | 152.9 |
| Change, 2024–2025 (%) | 14.87 | 3.2 | 2.2 |
| Nights per resident | 9.1 | 8.2 | 15.1 |
| Foreign nights, 2025 (million) | 301.6 | n/a | 131.1 |
| Foreign nights per resident | 5.1 | n/a | 12.6 |
| Foreign share of nights (%) | 56.3 | 55.3 | 83.8 |
| Domestic nights per resident | 4.0 | n/a | 2.4 |
| Survey foreign nights, central bank (million) | 392.8 | 392.8 | 244.7 |
Spending per night and per trip
The two surveys also give spending per night, which is as close as the data come to comparing what a visitor's day costs. The Bank of Greece puts spending per overnight stay at €96.6 in 2025, up 7.7% from €89.7. That figure equals total receipts divided by total survey nights, €23,626.8 million over 244.7 million, our check. The Bank of Italy publishes the same calculation for all foreign travelers, €144.4 a day in 2025, up 2.2%, and a narrower figure for travelers who stayed overnight, €139.1, up 2.6%.
On the matching definition, receipts divided by survey nights, a night in Italy brought in €144.4 and a night in Greece €96.6. Italy's figure is about half as high again. Both numbers still carry survey differences. Italy's receipts include spending by 30.8 million same-day visitors who add no nights, which lifts the Italian average. Greece's receipts include spending by cruise passengers, who mostly sleep on board, which lifts the Greek average in the same way. We read the gap as real in direction and approximate in size.
Average stays can be compared only on a matching count. The Bank of Greece reports 5.6 nights per trip in 2025, down from 5.9, and €545.5 spent per trip, up 2.8%. Both are computed over 43.3 million travelers including cruise passengers, most of whom spend no nights on land. Dividing the Bank of Greece's 244.7 million survey nights by the 38.0 million travelers in its border survey alone gives 6.4 nights, and dividing the Bank of Italy's 392.8 million foreign nights by its 61.4 million overnight travelers also gives 6.4 (both our arithmetic). On that basis average stays in the two countries were about the same length.
Rising spending per night fits a pattern the Bank of Greece numbers show directly. Receipts rose 9.4% in 2025 while survey nights rose 1.6%. More of Greece's growth came from spending per night than from time spent in the country. In Italy growth was split about evenly. Foreign nights rose 2.3% and daily spending 2.2%, while overnight travelers rose 6.3%.
What does not compare, and why
Four measures that often appear in Italy vs Greece comparisons cannot be set beside the figures above. In each case the problem is the definition or the source, so we explain it rather than print a ranking.
Visitor counts
The Bank of Greece counts 43,311,900 inbound travelers in 2025, up 6.4%. That total includes cruise passengers recorded outside the border survey; the border survey alone found 37,981,100. The Bank of Italy counts 92.2 million foreign travelers, of whom 61.4 million stayed overnight and 30.8 million were same-day visitors. Neither pair is built the same way. Dividing by population gives 1.04 foreign overnight travelers per Italian resident and 4.18 inbound travelers per Greek resident, our arithmetic. We show those two figures only to say why we do not rank them: one includes cruise passengers and the other excludes same-day visitors.
Tourism's share of GDP and jobs
ISTAT's Tourism Satellite Account for 2023, published in December 2025, puts tourism's direct contribution to Italian GDP at €106,681 million, or 5.0%, and 9.6% including indirect effects. Tourism industries employed 4,324,540 job positions, 14.4% of the total. ISTAT warns that the 2023 edition is not comparable with earlier ones. Our article on tourism's share of Italy's GDP and jobs explains the satellite account.
We found no satellite-account figure for Greece from ELSTAT. The figure most often quoted for Greece comes from INSETE, the research institute of the Greek tourism confederation. Its release of April 11, 2024 put tourism's direct contribution in 2023 at €28.5 billion, 13% of GDP, and the total at 28.5% to 34.3% with multipliers. INSETE builds that figure by adding up spending components, including air and sea transport and investment, and then applies multipliers from two Greek research institutes. It is a different method from ISTAT's value-added accounting. A Greek 13% set against an Italian 5.0% compares two different measurements, so this article does not compare tourism's share of GDP between the two countries. The like-for-like measure is travel receipts as a share of GDP, 9.5% against 2.5%.
The WEF index
The World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Development Index 2026, published on September 25, 2026, ranks Italy 10th of 110 economies with 4.93 and Greece 21st with 4.57, on the WEF's interactive economy profiles. Our analysis of Italy's WEF ranking covers what moved both. On the WEF's pillars the two countries lead in different areas. Greece ranks 4th on tourist services, 8th on air transport and 15th on the priority given to tourism, all ahead of Italy's 14th, 17th and 35th. Italy ranks 4th on cultural resources, against Greece's 25th, and 102nd on price competitiveness. The index is a different kind of number from everything else in this article. It scores conditions such as infrastructure, prices and policy, and it does not count visitors or spending.
Airports
Greek airport traffic is reported by several operators, including Athens International Airport and Fraport Greece for 14 regional airports. We did not open a national primary source for 2025 that covers all Greek airports, so this article leaves airport passengers out rather than set an incomplete Greek total against Italy's national figure.
Figures that circulated
Several Greece vs Italy figures in circulation, including three published on our sister site Greek Trip Planner, do not match the central bank releases. The panel below sets each one beside what the primary source shows.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers choosing between the two countries are choosing between scale and intensity. Greece receives 2.4 times as much visitor spending per resident and about 1.7 to 1.8 times as many registered nights per resident, and 84% of the nights in its hotels and other registered lodging are spent by foreign guests. Italy spreads a larger total across a larger country and a strong home market, where Italians themselves spend 4.0 registered nights per resident a year. A night in Italy brought in more visitor spending in 2025, €144.4 against €96.6 on the two central banks' matching calculation. Average stays were about the same length once cruise passengers are set aside, 6.4 nights in each country on our arithmetic.
Tourism businesses and investors should read the travel balance alongside receipts. Italy's €56.7 billion comes with €34.1 billion of outbound spending by its own residents, which makes Italy's tourism market two-way: a large domestic and outbound customer base sits next to the inbound one. Greece's €23.6 billion comes with €3.3 billion out, so its industry is built around foreign demand, which carries 83.8% of registered nights. That raises Greece's exposure to any shock in foreign markets and lowers Italy's. The figure to watch in Greece is outbound spending, which rose 19.0% in 2025. In Italy, wait for ISTAT's restated series before reading any growth rate in nights across 2024 and 2025. Anyone modeling Greek capacity should also allow for the unanswered question of whether private short-term rentals sit inside the official nights count.
Journalists and analysts can cite these figures with their series named: Italy €56,724 million and Greece €23,627 million in 2025 travel receipts (Eurostat bop_c6_a, matching the Bank of Italy and the Bank of Greece); Italy €22,671 million and Greece €20,288 million in travel balance; €962 and €2,278 in receipts per resident on January 1, 2025 population (derived); and 156,347,283 registered nights in Greece against 535,463,245 in Italy on a new basis that includes private non-business rentals (Eurostat tour_occ_ninat). Do not quote Italy's 14.87% rise in nights; it compares two coverages. Do not rank 43.3 million Greek travelers against 61.4 million or 92.2 million Italian ones; the surveys count different things. Do not set INSETE's 13% of Greek GDP against ISTAT's 5.0% for Italy. The WEF's 2026 ranks, Italy 10th and Greece 21st, score conditions for tourism and can sit beside these figures without being mixed with them. The finding this article adds to the series is that Italy's receipts are 2.4 times Greece's while the two travel balances are within 12% of each other.
Data & sources
Period covered: 2023–2025 annual data (population on January 1, 2025)
- Bank of Greece, Developments in the balance of travel services: 2025 · Final 2025 travel receipts (€23,626.8 million), balance, inbound travelers including cruise, spending per trip and per overnight stay; released May 7, 2026 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Bank of Italy, International tourism survey, statistics for 2025 · Foreign travelers' spending in Italy (€56.7 billion), Italians' spending abroad, balance, travelers, nights and daily spending (Tav. 2 and 11); excludes international fares; June 26, 2026 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Eurostat, bop_c6_a, balance of payments by country and partner (travel) · Harmonized travel credit, debit and balance for Italy and Greece, 2023–2025, € million; updated October 2, 2026 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Eurostat, tour_occ_ninat, nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments · Nights by residents and nonresidents, NACE I551–I553, Italy and Greece, 2023–2025; Italy's 2025 value includes private non-business rentals; updated October 12, 2026 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Eurostat, demo_pjan, population on January 1 · Population on January 1, 2025: Italy 58,943,464, Greece 10,372,335; used for all per-resident figures; updated September 25, 2026 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- Eurostat, nama_10_gdp, GDP and main components · GDP at current prices 2025 (Greece provisional), used for receipts and balance as a share of GDP; updated November 5, 2026 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- ISTAT, Conto satellite del turismo per l'Italia, 2023 · Tourism Satellite Account: direct tourism GDP €106,681 million (5.0%), 9.6% with indirect effects, 14.4% of job positions; not comparable with earlier editions; December 2025 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
- INSETE, The contribution of tourism to the Greek economy in 2023 · Spending-based estimate of tourism's direct contribution (€28.5 billion, 13% of GDP) with multiplier ranges; method differs from a satellite account; April 11, 2024 Accessed 7 Nov 2026.
Methodology
We compared Italy and Greece only on series that measure the same thing in the same way. Receipts, spending abroad and the travel balance come from the Bank of Italy's international tourism survey (June 26, 2026), the Bank of Greece's final 2025 release on travel services (May 7, 2026) and Eurostat's harmonized table bop_c6_a (updated October 2, 2026), which match each other. Nights come from Eurostat's tour_occ_ninat (updated October 12, 2026), with ISTAT's old-basis total for Italy. Population (demo_pjan, January 1, 2025) and GDP (nama_10_gdp, updated November 5, 2026) come from Eurostat. Tourism's share of GDP draws on ISTAT's 2023 satellite account and INSETE's 2023 release. Every figure was read from the primary source or the Eurostat database on November 7, 2026, except ISTAT's 481 million old-basis total and the 6.0% change on a recalculated 2024, the WEF index ranks and scores, read from the WEF's interactive economy profiles for our earlier WEF analysis, and the Bank of Greece's provisional +5.6% for its February border-survey count, taken from our earlier reading.
Limitations: (1) Italy's 2025 nights add private non-business rentals, and Eurostat's 2024 value does not, so we show both bases and no like-for-like growth from Eurostat. (2) Eurostat's metadata for Greece does not say whether private short-term rentals are in the nights count. (3) The two central-bank surveys define travelers and per-night spending differently, so we do not rank visitor counts and treat spending per night as indicative. (4) No satellite-account share of GDP was found for Greece. (5) Per-resident figures, shares of GDP, ratios, average stays and growth rates are our arithmetic. (6) Greek airport data were left out because no national primary source could be opened.
Claims from our sister site Greek Trip Planner were tested against the same primary releases. Where a figure failed, the panel names the page, the date and what the primary source shows. Where we could not settle a question, we say so and leave the figure out.
Notes on the data
A satellite-account share of Greek GDP, Greek national airport traffic and whether Greek accommodation nights include private short-term rentals could not be verified and are not compared, and Italy's 2025 nights are shown on both the new basis (535,463,245, including private non-business rentals) and the old basis (481 million, from ISTAT), so its 14.87% Eurostat change is not like for like. Receipts per resident, shares of GDP, spending-abroad ratios, survey-to-Eurostat night ratios, average stays and growth rates are our arithmetic, visitor counts are not ranked because the two surveys define travelers differently, and three figures from our sister site that do not match the primary sources are listed in the corrections panel.
Frequently asked questions
Does Italy or Greece earn more from tourism?
Italy, in total. Foreign visitors spent €56.7 billion in Italy in 2025 and €23.6 billion in Greece, according to the Bank of Italy and the Bank of Greece. Eurostat's harmonized balance-of-payments table carries the same figures. Italy's receipts were 2.4 times Greece's.
Which country earns more from tourism per resident?
Greece. Dividing 2025 receipts by population on January 1, 2025 gives €2,278 per Greek resident and €962 per Italian resident, our arithmetic on Eurostat data. Greece's figure is 2.4 times Italy's.
How large is tourism in each economy?
Travel receipts equaled 9.5% of Greece's 2025 GDP and 2.5% of Italy's, our arithmetic on Eurostat data. Broader measures of tourism's share of GDP use different methods in the two countries. ISTAT's satellite account gives 5.0% direct for Italy in 2023, and INSETE's spending-based estimate gives 13% for Greece, so those two should not be compared.
What is each country's travel surplus?
Italy's travel balance was €22,671 million in 2025 and Greece's €20,288 million on Eurostat's series (€20,287.8 million in the Bank of Greece release). Italy's surplus is only 12% larger because Italians spent €34.1 billion abroad, against Greeks' €3.3 billion.
Which country has more tourist nights?
Italy, in total. Eurostat counts 535,463,245 nights in Italian registered accommodation in 2025 and 156,347,283 in Greek. Per resident Greece leads, with 15.1 nights against Italy's 9.1, or 8.2 on Italy's old basis.
Why does Italy show a 14.9% jump in nights for 2025?
From 2025 ISTAT counts private rentals run on a non-business basis, which earlier years left out. Eurostat's 2024 value is still on the old basis, so the 14.87% change compares two coverages. ISTAT reports 6.0% against a recalculated 2024, and its old-basis 2025 total of 481 million implies about 3.2%.
How many tourists visit Greece and Italy?
The Bank of Greece counts 43.3 million inbound travelers to Greece in 2025, including cruise passengers. The Bank of Italy counts 61.4 million foreign travelers who stayed overnight in Italy, plus 30.8 million same-day visitors. The two surveys define travelers differently, so the totals should not be ranked against each other.
Do visitors spend more per night in Italy or in Greece?
In Italy, on the central banks' surveys. Receipts divided by survey nights come to €144.4 a night in Italy and €96.6 in Greece for 2025. Italy's average includes same-day visitors' spending and Greece's includes cruise passengers, so the gap is approximate in size.
Where do Greece and Italy rank in the WEF tourism index?
Italy ranks 10th of 110 economies in the WEF's 2026 index with a score of 4.93, and Greece 21st with 4.57. The index scores conditions for tourism, such as infrastructure, prices and policy. It does not measure visitor numbers or spending.