by Maria Spiliopoulou
ATHENS, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Sea tourism (sea cruise, coastal shipping and yachting) contributes about 3.5 percent of Greek GDP each year in recent years with some 6 billion euros (6.8 billion U.S. dollars), local "Vima" (Tribune) newspaper reported on Thursday citing a report of the Institute of Greek Tourism.
Greece has altogether 170,052 boats and 22 organized marinas with a capacity of 8,924 berths, according to the International Council of Marine Industry Associations (ICOMIA) which holds its annual Global Marinas Conference in Athens from Thursday to Saturday.
In 2017, a total of 3,415 sea cruise vessels visited Greek ports with 4.62 million passengers.
As a traditional pillar of Greek economy for decades, the tourism industry withstood the eight year debt crisis that hit hard the country, and has posted impressive results in recent years, helping the ailing economy to recover.
According to the latest figures released from the central Bank of Greece earlier this October, Greece received more than 21 million visitors in the first eight months of this year. (1 euro=1.14 U.S. dollars)
