Tourism boom in Greece

An estimated 26 million tourists visited the southern European country in 2015, with that figure expected to rise this year by six per cent.

Greece's booming tourism industry was responsible for the vast majority of the 250,000 new jobs created in the cash-strapped country this year, Athens newspaper "Kathimerini" reported.

Over 210,000 of the positions - or 82.8 per cent - were connected to tourism, the report said, citing the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE).

But Greece's tourism industry is far from immune to the European refugee crisis. The country, which has received three multi-billion-euro bailouts since 2010 to rescue its foundering economy, has been a key entry point for hundreds of thousands of desperate people crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey.

The eastern Aegean islands have been hit hardest, such as Kos and Samos, where the number of visitors fell by 15 and 26 per cent respectively between January and August compared to the same period in 2015.

On Lesbos, a flashpoint of the crisis where scenes of squalid camps and disarray have made their way into the international media, the numbers have dropped by 60 per cent.

Tourism and related businesses generate one-quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the report.

is/ks/eg (dpa)