The Greek food industry has delivered a strong performance over the past five years, with its industrial production index consistently outperforming the European average, placing the sector in a stronger position as it enters a new period of mounting pressures. Tourism demand has been one of the sector's key growth drivers, accounting for an estimated 10%-15% of food sales, and its importance is expected to increase further over the coming decade, supported by rising tourism flows and the growing prominence of gastronomy in travel preferences. A key finding of the National Bank of Greece's field survey is that Greek food businesses demonstrate both a high level of awareness and a strong commitment to capitalising on this tourism-driven momentum. Not only is the opportunity almost universally recognised across the sector, but firms have already invested in partnerships with tourism businesses and are reporting significant economic benefits as a result.
Among the NBG survey findings, one result stands out: the vast majority of food SMEs (91%) recognise tourism as a key source of support for the sector, highlighting the near-universal awareness of its importance across both island and urban areas. At the same time, firms have shown a remarkably high level of engagement, with two-thirds of the sector having already taken action, primarily by establishing partnerships with hotels and restaurants to promote their products. Such collaboration is even more widespread among island-based food businesses, where 72% have developed partnerships, compared with 50% elsewhere, likely reflecting the greater dependence of local economies on tourism.
Turning to the outcomes of these initiatives, the survey points to a clear economic payoff from stronger linkages between the food and tourism sectors, with the extent of firms' engagement shaping the scale of the benefits. In particular:
- Food SMEs that have established partnerships with tourism businesses have a four times higher probability to achieve substantial contribution of tourism demand to their sales compared with firms that have not pursued similar initiatives.
- The benefits extend beyond higher revenues: one-quarter of the sector reports simultaneous improvements in both sales and profit margins as a result of these partnerships, around 60% report direct benefits, while 12% derive mainly indirect gains, such as networking opportunities.
In this sense, tourism effectively acts as a “domestic export market” for Greek food producers: it brings international demand into the country at a lower market-access cost than traditional exports, and already serves as an active growth driver for the sector, strengthening both sales and financial performance.
Nevertheless, tourism demand does not automatically translate into stable sales growth and higher profit margins. For food businesses, the key challenge is no longer recognising the opportunity, but rather transforming it into a structured and reliable B2B sales channel serving the tourism sector. The findings suggest that there is no single formula for success. Firms can build on different competitive advantages, including product quality and differentiation, cost competitiveness or targeted networking initiatives, while geographical proximity to tourist destinations appears to only play a limited role. Consequently, success does not depend on replicating a common model, but on each firm’s ability to convert its own strengths into recurring supply relationships through consistent production capacity, sufficient scale, collaborative capability and operational maturity.
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