Athens continued its tourism surge in 2025, with Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos recording a historic 34 million passengers — two million more than in 2024. International traffic rose to 24.4 million passengers, while the Greek capital welcomed 8.7 million foreign visitors, up by 800,000 year-on-year.

Despite the strong momentum, Athens still lags well behind Barcelona as a metropolitan tourism destination, according to a study by GBR Consulting and Athens International Airport.

The report highlights a major structural difference: Barcelona operates as a fully integrated metropolitan destination, extending tourism activity well beyond the city center. In 2024, the wider Barcelona region recorded 13.1 million hotel arrivals and 34.6 million overnight stays, compared with 5.7 million arrivals and 12.7 million overnight stays in Attica.

Barcelona also maintains far stronger tourism infrastructure, with 909 hotels and nearly 148,000 rooms, versus 716 hotels and just 36,000 rooms in Attica. Athens, meanwhile, relies heavily on short-term rentals, with up to 35,000 Airbnb units across the region.

The study notes that tourism in Athens remains concentrated around the Acropolis, Syntagma and a limited coastal zone, while many visitors continue to see the city mainly as a gateway to the Greek islands. Average stays remain short at roughly three days.

Athens also scores lower than Barcelona in key urban experience indicators, including public transport, cleanliness, noise levels and city services. At the same time, the report identifies significant untapped potential, particularly in the coastal front and nearby islands, which most visitors still do not explore.

The central challenge for Athens, the study concludes, is to transform itself from a short cultural stop into a fully developed multi-day metropolitan destination.