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overall financial hardship and the images of vio-
lence that Greece has been periodically transmit-
ting abroad. As a result of these adverse devel-
opments, it is imperative to accelerate the pace of
the necessary adjustments.
The sun and the sea, the beaches, the climate,
the natural beauty, and the cultural heritage com-
prise an excellent raw material, which, nonethe-
less, soon reaches saturation when offered as
such: any one-sidedly developed tourist system
that is based on a plain, primary tourist compo-
nent produces limited satisfaction and imposes
an excessive burden on the ecosystem.
Up to this date, the value added to these unique
comparative advantages has not only been limit-
ed, thus ruling out any differentiation, but has also
been problematic in terms of quality (lack of gener-
al infrastructure, bad service, insecurity, uncertain-
ty, lack of effective environmental protection etc.).
This situation inescapably leads to a mediocre
–as compared to its potential– and quite often
overpriced –and therefore less competitive–
tourist product, which soon disappoints tourist-
consumers, leads to reduced tourist revenues
and jeopardizes the viability of many tourist enter-
prises.
Touristically underdeveloped countries confine or
limit themselves to adding a small value to their
national primary comparative advantage, which
generates limited benefits, whereas touristically
developed countries establish the conditions
required for offering a highly complex and very
rich tourist product, which maximizes both cus-
tomer satisfaction and producer gain.
It is obvious that, in a period of serious global
change and intensifying competition, Greek
tourism should concentrate its efforts on:
● the continuous improvement of the quality of
the tourist services offered by the country, in
order to attract a more sophisticated, but also
higher-end, customer base;
● the effective –and not superficial– differentiation
of Greece's tourist product so that, through a
series of additional services and the promotion
of innovative actions (energy and water effi-
ciency, safeguarding and promotion of the
local natural and cultural environment, use of
alternative forms of energy etc.), tourists will
have to choose among a wider variety of
appealing choices, apart from the "sun and
sea" model;
● the elimination of Greek tourism's dependence
on a highly seasonal model, which puts a major
constraint on the country's growth potential.
In this context, the country is systematically mov-
ing, through new development incentives and
individual measures (full lifting of cabotage
restrictions), towards the following directions:
a) The encouragement and promotion of a series
of alternative forms of tourism (agro-tourism,
eco-tourism, marine tourism, religious tourism,
mountaineering, hitching etc.) that attract
increasing numbers of tourists, aware of the
importance of environmental protection and
the welfare of the local communities, and help
expand the duration of the tourist season thus
ensuring a more proper allocation of the coun-
try's visitors over time and space.
Trade with Greece
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