The country’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis admitted that the opening up of Greece’s tourism industry would be “dependent on the pace of vaccination in our main markets”.

Mitsotakis said vaccination programmes would pave the way for holidaymakers to return to Greece and cited the UK and Israel as markets that were “leading the way” in vaccinating their populations against Covid-19.

He added that providing vaccination certificates would not be mandatory for visitors to the country this summer.

"I am a realist but I am also cautiously optimistic that we will do much better than last year," said Mitsotakis in an interview with news agency Reuters.

He said that Greece received around 25% of its normal number of international tourists during 2020 and added that getting up this figure up to 50% in 2021 would be “100% better than last year”.

"For example, Israel is a very important market for Greece and if 70% of the Israeli population is vaccinated by the end of March, it makes it easier to gradually start opening up to Israelis who have a real interest in travelling," explained Mitsotakis.