More than 70,000 came on visa express
About 350,000 Turks, citizens of Turkey or Europeans of Turkish origin visited the northern Aegean islands for holidays in 2024.
According to official data from the General Police Directorate of the North Aegean, last year, a total of 339,985 Turkish citizens visited the islands. Of these, 120,141 visited Lesvos125,679 visited the Chios and 94,165 the Samo. Here, let it be noted that 71,648 Turkish citizens out of 339,985, approximately 20% of them, came to the islands taking advantage of the possibility of issuing the so-called visa express for visitors from Turkey.
As is well known, the seven-day visa express pilot procedure for Turkish citizens – visitors to the islands of the eastern Aegean it came into effect last April as a result of an agreement reached during the meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
“It was an agreement that gave wings to the relations between the two sides of the Aegean and allowed the development of this large tourist flow of Turkish tourists from the Turkish coasts to the islands,” says Aris Lazaris, Secretary General of the Union of Tourist and Travel Agents of Lesbos, speaking to APE-MPE . The opinion of the president of the Chamber of Lesvos, Vangelis Myrsinias, is similar, describing the Mitsotakis-Erdogan agreement for the pilot process of issuing express visas to Turkish visitors to the islands as “saving for the local economy”. As he says “it continued to increase visitation from regular visa holders as well since it allowed members of a group who did not have or did not have time to issue a visa to participate in group holidays. It was – he adds – also a way of advertising the islands since the visa express holders were the best ambassadors of the islands by returning to Turkey, issuing long-term visas to come back or urging others to proceed with issuing visa express”.
Most express visas, 28,734, were issued at its port Mytilene. It follows the port of Chios with 26,337 issues and finally, 16,577 express visas were issued in Samos. There is a large number of Turkish European citizens who, being in Turkey for holidays from the countries where they live, visited the islands of the northern Aegean together with their Turkish citizen relatives. The number of this category of visitors is estimated to exceed 30,000 in total!
An issue that arises concerns the continuation of the pilot visa express issuance process, which currently has an end date of March 31, 2025. “The tourism operators of the Aegean are united, says Mr. Lazaris, we ask for the continuation of the program since it is an important economic breath for the place”. The opinion of the president of the Lesvos Chamber, Mr. Myrsinias, who even goes a step further by requesting the permanence of the possibility of issuing express visas in the ports of the Aegean islands by Turkish visitors. “New lines that will connect Mytilini but also the port of Petra with the port of Adramytinos gulf, Aivali and Dikeli cannot be started in Lesvos and there should not be the possibility of visa express” says Mr. Myrsinias. Participant in the effort and the regional governor of the northern Aegean Kostas Moutzouris. Who, after leading the effort that led to last year’s agreement, has come back, contacting the prime minister, asking for its renewal. “From the first moment, the Region took the lead in making the possibility of issuing visa express at the ports effective. It is an important development possibility but at the same time a peaceful effort. Peoples who know each other cannot easily be enemies” notes Mr. Smudgy.
It should be noted that the prospects of a new tourist stream of Turkish visitors to the islands of the northern Aegean for 2025, larger than that of 2024, are already evident. The number of bookings as of now is high for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of March this year. While even in the “dead” tourist season of January, a significant number of Turks choose the islands for a weekend.
