Greek Banks: Tracking international arrivals, a key indicator for tourism

Research evidence excerpt

Greek Banks: Tracking international arrivals, a key indicator for tourism

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Greek Banks Equities

Europe Ex. UKTracking international arrivals, a key indicator for

tourism Banks, Ex-S&L

Stephan Potgieter, CFA

Analyst

stephan.potgieter@ubs.com

Tourism remains resilient despite the Middle East conflict +44-20-7568 8162

We track the number of international passenger arrivals in Athens as a key indicator of

the tourism industry (weekly data with the latest as at 8 June). As shown in Figure 1

below, the usual pattern of a seasonal increase in international arrivals remained in place

despite the uncertainty of the Middle East conflict, although growth has slowed to only

1.1% yoy compared to stronger growth in previous years (Figure 3NumberofInternationalarivalsatEleftheriosInternationalAirport,Athens inside), ~12% yoy in

the 2025 season, ~19% yoy in 2024 and ~23% yoy in 2023. However, growth has

bounced back ~1% yoy from a decline of ~8% yoy in April. The banks indicated in their

Q2 calls that tourism trends remained robust and that they have not yet seen an impact

on corporate credit growth from the conflict.

Corporate credit books diverse, tourism only ~6% of big four total credit

Although tourism is an important industry for Greece, the corporate credit books of the

banks are diverse with tourism contributing only ~6% of group credit and ~8%of

corporate credit for the big for banks (Figure 5 showing total loan breakdown including

operations outside of Greece). The contribution of tourism to the loan books of the big

four is ~4.5% for Eurobank, ~4.7% for NBG, ~6.7% for Alpha and ~7.7% for Piraeus

(gross loans as reported). We notice the higher contribution of retail credit of Eurobank

at 38% vs.