Rhodes appears to be high on the list of tourists.
The Deputy Mayor of Tourism and Culture, Georgios Toppos, expressed his deep satisfaction with the tourist miracle that took place this year in Rhodes tourism, with almost 3.5 million visitors having come to the island by September 2024, by airplanes, cruise ships and catamarans.
He stressed that: “Rhodes, known around the world as a high quality tourist destination, with comparative advantages, historical, cultural and natural heritage and the warm hospitality of its people that make its tourism product unique, attracts the interest not only of thousands of visitors but also of journalists from all over the world.”
“This year’s tourist season is breaking all records for our emerald island!” Mr. Toppos underlines, as “according to the official data from the airport “Diagoras” of Rhodes and from the Port Authority of Rhodes, this year is the best year in the history of Rhodian tourism, showing an overall increase in visitor arrivals on the island until September, of 12-14% compared to 2023, which was also a very important year for tourism in Rhodes.
Passenger traffic at Rhodes Airport literally took off in the first nine months of 2024, with 2.7 million passengers arriving by air on the island.
British visitors hold the sceptre again this year, followed by visitors from Germany, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Israel, other Scandinavian countries and then Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.
264 cruise ships arrived in Rhodes by the end of September
There was also a notable increase in passenger arrivals to Rhodes by cruise ships. Based on the data, 264 cruise ships with 353,475 passengers called at the port of Rhodes by the end of September, while in October we expect another 60.24 cruise ships in November and 4 in December 2024.”
The numbers for visitors from Turkey are also impressive, as tourist traffic from there, this year, is showing a 30% increase and so far 370,026 Turkish visitors have arrived in 2024, while 4,259 visas were issued for the month of September.
The most impressive fact about the cruise industry, however, according to Toppo, is that “October will break all records compared to all previous months, as there are 60 scheduled cruise ship calls, more than any other month. For yachting in particular, there is a 25% increase in boat calls, which is huge in terms of alternative marine tourism,” he concludes:
“To this excellent result that I mentioned above”, as Mr. Toppos points out, “all the stakeholders involved in tourism and of course the Municipality of Rhodes with the tourism policy and strategy that it followed from the beginning of the year, with its presence in international tourism exhibitions, the press trips, in cooperation with the Directorate of Tourism and PROTOUR.
A policy that continues with actions and actions aimed at further promotion, especially digital promotion of the island, with some changes in terms of strengthening alternative tourism, experience tourism and of course new markets, in order to have an extension of the tourist season and tourism in the winter months, in cooperation with tourism agents abroad.
“As a municipal authority we are studying and planning actions and actions to extend the tourist season and the winter months and a number of projects we are working on and touch on the promotion of the island and new tourist markets, many of them prefer holidays in the winter period,” he said.
The Municipality of Rhodes proposes, in cooperation with all relevant local bodies, the design and implementation of a programme aimed at extending the tourist season, the promotion of individual characteristics of the island such as eco-tourism, wine tourism, sports tourism, gastronomic, conference, spa, religious tourism and others, as well as the attraction of new markets from Asia and specifically from China, India, Bahrain and South Korea.
