Higher government loans, a longer summer season and a three-year development plan should give tourism a lift
ourism
officials are cautiously optimistic about business, with reservations
for 2002 showing a 30 per cent year-on-year increase.
The tourism authorities are drawing up a three-year development plan
for the sector and the government has granted loans worth $27.58 million,
almost twice the level it spent in 2000. Most of the money is going
towards a major advertising campaign.
Greek development minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos says: “Our priority
is to use tourism policy as a tool for economic and social development.”
Private sector operators, under the Association of Greek Tourist Enterprises
(SETE), have welcomed the government support. The 2001 tourism season
is expected to close with five per cent more tourists from the UK, at
2.9 million, compared to the previous year.
To give the industry a lift, the summer season has been lengthened to
April to mid-October, supported by government subsidies. The state-run
Greek National Tourism Organisation says that it has secured the support
of 110,000 travel operators for the scheme. As a result, an additional
55,000 people visited off-season last year.
EU funds are being used to develop eco-tourism
Funds
from the European Union are being used to develop eco-tourism in a bid
to diversify the industry while protecting the environment. Dimitris
Georgarakis, tourism secretary-general at the development ministry,
says: “Eco-tourism is a very sensitive subject. The strict laws
protecting ecology and the environment will remain in force indefinitely.
The point of eco-tourism is to keep the ecological standards and blend
people with nature.”
Mr Georgarakis says new laws will create incentives to encourage further
foreign investment. “The concept is to leave the tourism industry
to the professionals instead of the government. The state can be a good
investor or public administrator in some things, but it is not good
in business.”
The government is privatising Hellenic Tourist Properties (HTP), the
state agency that manages public-sector assets in the tourism industry.
HTP’s assets are valued in excess of $7.6 billion, representing
the biggest property portfolio in the country.
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HTP
was founded to build infrastructure in Greece, and in the 1960s it set
up the first hotels and marinas for a new tourism industry. Company
managing director Tasos Chomenidis
says: “It was a good idea to do this at that time because we created
Greece as a tourist destination. The local economy could not afford
to make those investments.”
Since the mid-1990s, with the tourism sector well established, the plan
has been to list HTP on the Athens
Stock Exchange and this should happen early this year.
Mr Chomenidis says the profile of the industry must change from that
of mass tourism as those holidaymakers tend to spend less per capita
than in the past. “They seek very cheap quality. We have good quality,
but we can’t operate at those prices,” he says.
“Therefore we have to change our type of tourist, upgrade the services
we offer and attract higher spenders. We cannot afford to have more
than 13 million people coming here every year.”
The
attempt to attract more upmarket tourists is partly focused on tapping
into Greece’s long history and its rich and colourful culture.
This is one of the chief aims of Hellenic Festival, an association that
groups together the organisers of cultural and artistic events held
in Greece.
Hellenic Festival chairman Periklis Koukoç says the association
was involved in entertaining audiences of 300,000 people last year.
One of the challenges facing the organisers is to be able to stage performances
to a high artistic standard in large auditoria, such as the ancient
11,000-seater theatre at Epidaurus or the 5,000-seater Herodus Atticus
theatre under the Acropolis in Athens.
Mr
Koukoç explains: “The aim is to promote events, both to
the Greek public and to the international visitors who flock to our
country during the summer months. The festival has the dual goal of
showcasing Greek cultural traditions as well as contemporary Greek culture,
in order to create an important attraction for tourism.”
The Festival of Athens regularly plays host to some of the most famous
international artistes from a broad spectrum of the arts. Mr Koukoç
says: “Tourists have always visited Greece for its culture as well
as its natural beauty. The country offers the chance to make a journey
through the history of mankind via our monuments and ancient sites.
“But, we try to show that Greece can offer a contemporary culture
as well. A tourist can spend his time on the beach all day long and
then attend a concert or a performance of an ancient Greek drama in
the most beautiful theatres in the world, all under the blue sky of
the summer night.”
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