this specific tourism product in local markets and
societies.”
That said, the prospects of Greek tourism for the year
2015 seem to be positive, according to the first esti-
mates of the Association of Greek Tourist
Enterprises, which has set a target of 25 million inter-
national arrivals (of which, 2.5 million cruise passen-
ger arrivals) and €14 billion in direct revenues.
The Association’s estimates take into account
preliminary data on airline bookings, which, over-
all, appear to be increased by 1 million as com-
pared to 2014. Undoubtedly, the end of the initial
period of uncertainty, through the completion of
the first phase of negotiations with Greece’s EU
partners, will enable the country to regain the lost
ground and will facilitate the realization of this
year’s targets. Obviously, all tourism stakeholders
must work together to the benefit of the economy,
employment and the local societies.
In Athens, according to data from the Association of
Greek Tourist Enterprises, the number of interna-
tional tourist arrivals at the “El. Venizelos” airport
rose by 29.4% in 2014, to 3.39 million. Moreover,
data from the Association of Hoteliers of Athens,
Attica and the Argosaronic, show that the average
hotel occupancy rate increased by almost 20% as
compared to 2013, thus covering 50-60% of the
total loss of overnight stays since 2008, the last
good tourist year for Greece’s capital. Another pos-
itive development was the fact that public opinion
regarding Athens as a destination has substantially
improved, as demonstrated by the relevant surveys.
So, as estimated by the competent agencies, the
number of foreign visitors is also expected to
increase this year. An early verification of this esti-
mate is the enhancement of Athens’ attractive-
ness as a winter tourist destination, demonstrated
in February 2015 by the 24% year-on-year
increase in the number of foreign travellers who
chose Athens as their exclusive destination.
Overall, in January-February 2015 traffic at the
“El. Venizelos” airport exceeded 1.8 million pas-
sengers, increased by 26.3% year-on-year.
It is true that Greek tourism, despite any (struc-
tural or conjectural) problems it may occasionally
face, did rather well in the previous year, along
with other tourist powers of the Mediterranean.
So, we must neither pat ourselves in the back,
not, of course, downplay the indisputable value of
this achievement.
Especially in the case of Greece, this perform-
ance was combined with, and at the same time
triggered, a reversal in the continuous contraction
of the country’s GDP during the past 75 months,
without, of course, overlooking its positive impact
on society, through the decrease in unemploy-
ment or even the invigoration of the local
economies.
It is certain that Greek tourism has achieved a lot
and still has many things to improve, in order to
remain competitive within an extremely challeng-
ing environment, to the benefit of many millions of
friends of Greece from all over the globe, and to
the Greek economy itself.
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