- ISRAIR targets 600,000 passengers to Greece in 2025, up from 350,000 in 2024.
- Over 60 flights daily connect Tel Aviv and Greece during peak season, covering not just islands but cities and coastal stretches everywhere.
- Brown Hotels’ investments span both the islands and the mainland, styling themselves as more than just another hotel chain.
- New agreements with global brands like Moet and TechnoGym are designed to turn hotel stays into headline events.
- The Greek-Israeli tourism surge relies on a cocktail of proximity, open culture, economic steadiness, and clear business frameworks.
- Both ISRAIR’s Uri Sirkis and Brown Hotels’ Leon Avigad see creative investment and returning guests as the new normal for 2025.
Greek tourism is now a favourite sport for Israelis, and ISRAIR has replaced the lowly travel agent as the trusted chaperone of sun-chasing crowds. “We expect to carry over 600,000 passengers to Greece in 2025,” said Uri Sirkis, CEO of ISRAIR, at the ever-so-glamorous Maritime Med Athens assembly, where airline executives sip overpriced espresso and measure their destinies in passenger headcounts. This projection leaps from 350,000 in 2024—a growth spurt that would alarm any doctor but seems to delight investors and beach bar managers alike.
Peak summer? That means over 60 flights a day, all cheerily herding tourists from Tel Aviv to every Greek location with a runway and a semblance of a hotel. Forget the old image of packed ferry rides; the modern Israeli tourist arrives by winged convoy, ready to explore a menu ranging from religious pilgrimages to medical tourism, with a healthy dose of food-binge and sports fanaticism sprinkled in. Leisure, spirituality, and the hope for a tan that survives the winter—Greece has become the all-you-can-eat buffet for Israeli wanderlust.
And if airports swell with crowds, hotels are close behind. Leon Avigad, the founding mind behind Brown Hotels, speaks with the confidence of someone who reads hotel feedback. “Alongside our parent company, we are determined to expand further into Greece and strengthen the Brown Hotels and Play Hotels brands,” he insisted. The plan is simple: invest in the mainland, islands, metropolitan Athens, and everything in between. Forget only Mykonos or Santorini; Athens, Thessaloniki, the Peloponnese, Evia, and Halkidiki are now the new “in” crowd.
Partnerships keep cropping up like wildflowers on a Greek hillside. “We are currently reviewing several hotel deals across the mainland, islands, and central Athens. I hope we will soon announce some agreements that are in their final stages,” Avigad grinned, presumably while counting the zeroes on the contracts. And for those who believe that Greek hotels have seen it all, Avigad drops a teaser: 2025 promises returning guests and “creative collaborations with top brands like Moet and TechnoGym at our Isla hotels.” Champagne and treadmills under the same roof—a marriage forged in the heat of hospitality exuberance.
New Rules of Attraction: Investment, Stability, and the Greek Offer That Can’t Be Refused
Greece didn’t stumble its way into Israeli travel lore by accident. Geography helps, sure—a short hop and you’re off the plane, ready to swim, pray, eat, or all three. But culture holds stubbornly in the background, a subtle nudge toward baklava and late-night walks in Plaka. ISRAIR’s Sirkis and Brown Hotels’ Avigad both say the same thing with a wink: Greece is number one for Israeli vacationers because it’s close, enjoyable, and packed with choices.
But progress doesn’t tolerate uncertainty. Both officials remind eager hoteliers and tourism hopefuls that the engine needs stable fuel: “Tourism thrives when economic stability, a friendly banking system, and transaction transparency are in place.” For those who thought Greek development ended at the hotel lobby, think again; every uptick in tourist numbers ripples out into the broader economy, cash registers ringing, local businesses humming, and society busy feasting on the foreign influx.