After a bumper tourism season this summer in Greece, things appear to be looking up for the country, with economists raising their growth forecasts just a week ahead of bailout inspectors arriving in Athens.
Greece's tourism sector has seen a substantial boost this year, according to Capital Economics' Ben May, with balance of payments data revealing that receipts from travel services were over 20 percent higher than a year earlier.
"The turnaround will largely reflect the fact that the Greek crisis, which depressed tourism last year, has since eased, boosting tourist numbers," May wrote in a note on Tuesday. "Greece will also have benefited from fewer holidaymakers heading to destinations in North Africa and the Middle East this summer."
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He argued that this strong performance from the tourism industry could help bolster Greece's economy in the third quarter, which he expects to contract by around 3 percent. This is substantially less than the forecast by the "troika" of Greece's international creditors - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - which forecasts a 4.2 percent contraction.