International tourist arrivals in Greece are soaring as data for the first half of this year have shown an increase of 17.1 percent, compared with the corresponding period last year. An additional 760,000 tourists arrived by air in Greece within the January-July 2014 period, exceeding 5.2 million, according to reports of the Association of Hellenic Tourism Enterprises (SETE) released on Wednesday. 

The largest increase in air arrivals was recorded in Athens, with a considerable number of 400,000 more passengers, or 32,8 percent growth rising above 1.4 million. Figures for the Herakleion airport showed 884,605 arrivals by the end of June while at Kalamata airport a 58.5 percent rise was observed, with 30,170 passengers. Santorini vouch for 26 percent more foreign visitors by air.   

Furthermore, the airports in Athens and Santorini are among the European airports that had the highest increase in passenger traffic in May 2014 compared with the same month last year, according data recently released by the European airport trade body Airports Council International (ACI) Europe.