Tourists in 2019 will be over 800,000! – The strategy followed by the municipality for the promotion of the island is fruitful.
Paros has made an impressive increase in tourist activity over the past two years, and it is entering this year’s summer as well. According to the official data of the Civil Aviation Authority, arrivals for the January-September 2018 period were increased by 163% compared to 2016. A remarkable increase was observed in traffic of the harbor as 98,724 more visitors visited it during the same period 2012 , an increase of 19%. In total, in Paros, in 2018 it received almost 700,000 tourists, fifty times its population, and 58,088 vehicles. Indeed, the Tourism & Development Committee of the Municipality, assessing the data of this April – the biggest tourist move in the last eight years – predicts that tourists will exceed 800,000 in 2019.
In addition to the booming increase in arrivals, an important development for the economy of the island is the extension of the tourist season by thirty days. Now the season ends late in September and some companies stay open until the first 10 days of October. Three are the factors that have helped the island slip into the tourist map of the country. First, the operation of the new airport in 2016 has a larger wheelchair than the previous one. Larger planes began arriving on the island, new companies set up routes and the island was connected directly for the first time with many destinations, such as Prague and Graz. “The airport is a pivotal development pillar of the site. Besides bringing more and better tourists, it also facilitates business activity since you can now get to Paros on the same day, “says Mayor of Paros, Mr. Markos Kovayos, who led the private initiative for the construction of the airport.
Indeed, Paros seems to be far from the model of cheap mass tourism and magnetizes tourists from quality markets such as Belgium, France and Italy. The systematic effort of the Municipality to open the “fan” of the activities on the island and to approach specifically in common is the third factor in boosting the growth of tourism. In Paros there are people coming to walk on the mapped paths along the island, cyclists from Greece and Europe participating in the “Cycling Tour”, athletic enthusiasts taking part in races, as well as sports teams that come to work out . For example, this year’s women’s national handball hockey teams in America, Greece and Germany, as part of the “week of national teams,” will visit Paros to train.
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