According to Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias, the tourist season begins in Greece on March 1.
“The way we handled the pandemic was so important that even though every other Mediterranean country was closed in 2020, we opened up. reached 10.5-11 billion euros.This is a huge contribution to the Greek economy and trade.I did not make forecasts for the pandemic, and I will not do it now.But I see that instead of mid-April, we start on March 1. I see that the first cruise the liner has already departed for Thessaloniki and Volos.We will have 765 cruises, 55% of which will have a home port (registration) in Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, the Greek Islands. And at the moment there is a kind of “struggle” between airlines for “tourists,” the minister noted in his speech.
Off-season tourism, destinations that have been closed for two years due to the pandemic, have been fully booked for the holidays. This year, seasonal winter resorts, ski resorts, rental apartments and hotels were operating at full capacity. And it’s great! We have 14 flights from America every day since April. These are high-level travelers, bringing a very high income to the country.
Tour operators and major airlines are calling for a 30-50% increase in seating, travel bookings and slots by 2022. These numbers are very encouraging. The CEO of TUI came to Rhodes and said: “Last year I brought 1.5 million travelers, this year I want to bring 3 million.”
We are joining forces with everyone, the development of tourism is a national issue. We cooperate with the regions, so yesterday I convened the Regional Tourism Council, with 13 regional governors, with municipalities, with hotel owners, with the private sector and tour operators, with hundreds of professions and hundreds of thousands of employees in Greece who work and live off tourism, which is the locomotive of the economy,” the minister stressed.
