World Report

Following its pre-Olympics upgrade, the Greek capital has become the trendy place for short breaks and conferences

Athens has been transformed into a cleaner, easier, pleasanter city to visit, with a state-of-the-art transport system and hotel accommodation of international standards.

nce almost as famous for its traffic congestion and smog as for the 2,500-year-old Parthenon that sits atop the Acropolis, Athens has been transformed to become the new face of Greece. The Greek capital has emerged a clear winner from the 2004 Olympics, which served as a catalyst for a major facelift and a host of improvements.

Athens has become a relaxed, modern city, cleaner, easier and more pleasant to live in, to the benefit both of residents and visitors. Its brand new image, flashed across millions of television screens during the Games, is drawing visitors and business to the capital. Last month, it was chosen as the permanent base for the International Committee for the Mediterranean Games.

Today’s Athens is attracting tourists in its own right, rather than just being treated as a stepping stone on the way to the Greek islands and is pitching for a share of the lucrative city break section of the tourism market along with Amsterdam, Paris and Madrid.

The city has successfully established itself as an ideal all-year-round location for conferences, exhibitions and incentive events. In addition to the modern facilities and ancient monuments, Athens can offer conference guests 300 days of sunshine a year and proximity to the coast with the added attraction of excursions to the Greek islands.
Bookings for the first seven months of 2005 are set to bring in 74,000 delegates, already exceeding the total bookings of each of the two previous years.

Athens will acquire a modern new conference and exhibition centre this year, located either at the former Athens airport in Helliniko or at the Tae Kwon Do Hall built for the Olympics in Faliro.

Visitors to the city are impressed from the moment of arrival at the new international airport, Eleftherios Venizelos. Rated one of the best in Europe, the airport has gathered a host of awards since its opening in 2001, not least for passenger satisfaction, and has been breaking records for passenger traffic (up 11.5 percent to 13.7 million, last year), flights and cargo.

Having arrived, the visitor finds that travelling around the city is far simpler than it used to be, thanks to the state-of-the-art integrated transport system linking the suburbs to the city centre.

One of the most impressive achievements has been the construction of the Athens Metro, surely a candidate for one of the most attractive underground systems in the world. Work was frequently delayed as the engineers uncovered ancient artefacts, many of which are now on view to passengers at stations bearing more than a little resemblance to museums.

Above ground, new trams and a non-polluting bus fleet move through streets where snarl-ups have been reduced by the city’s new ring road. Traffic calming measures have been introduced and some areas pedestrianised.

The new Athens Metro has helped to cut congestion on the city’s roads.

Buildings have been cleaned, unsightly advertising removed, squares and shopping areas improved, pavements widened and trees planted. New hotels have opened and existing ones been extensively renovated. Standards have been raised in restaurants too, many of which now offer gourmet cuisine.

As a cultural centre, Athens has moved into a new era. New and refurbished museums and galleries display fine examples of Greek culture from ancient times right up to the present day, and a pedestrian circuit unites all archaeological sites in Europe’s largest archaeological park.

Mayor of Athens Dora Bakoyannis, is understandably keen to capitalise on the positive associations created by the Olympic Games. “The city’s new infrastructure and its successful hosting of the Games conveyed to the world the impression that Athens is a capital of world-class standards,” she says. “Now that Athens is equipped with modern facilities and services, there is great scope for development in the post-Olympic period.”