“The figures for June are impressive,” said Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias, referring to the increase in passenger traffic at “Eleftherios Venizelos”, in an interview he gave to SKAI TV and the show “Mismatches”.
As the Minister of Tourism said, arrivals from the USA in June recorded a 50% increase compared to the corresponding period in 2019, while the data from other important foreign tourist markets also show particular momentum, with arrivals from Austria showing an increase +32%, from Israel +24%, Canada +12%, France +8% and Great Britain +1%.
“The recovery of our tourism product is strong. And all this, in fact, in a year which is not at all clear, with the closed market of China, Ukraine and Russia, with a war raging all the last months in the heart of Europe, with a pandemic and with all the problems that exist due to inflationary pressures and the energy crisis”, underlined Mr. Kikilias, adding that the first figures speak of attracting high-income visitors, a fact that is also recorded in revenues. “And this is very important. Because it means supporting primary production, the commercial world, the small and medium-sized Greek business that is the “backbone” of the Greek economy, the hundreds of professions related to our tourist product, the construction industry, the attraction new investments, as well as the implementation of key infrastructure projects in local communities,” he noted.
The Minister of Tourism talked about the strategy of lengthening the tourist season, which – as he mentioned – this year started much earlier and is expected to end in December, while he particularly focused on putting Athens back on the tourist map. “As you can see, many of the travelers who visit our country now choose to stay in Athens. Whereas, in all previous years, the capital was an intermediate destination for anyone who wanted to go to the Greek islands, this has now changed. Athens has acquired another dynamic and a series of important investments have contributed to this, in the Athenian “Riviera” and elsewhere in the basin”, he emphasized.
Regarding, finally, the gaps observed after more than two years of the pandemic in professional sectors related to tourism, Mr. Kikilias reiterated that tourism workers are the ambassadors of our country abroad and, therefore, the jobs must be quality and well paid. “This is an issue that we have discussed, many times, with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labor, having even announced a specific network of actions in this direction. My proposal, from now on, will be subsidizing work and not That is, if – for example – a hotelier or a shopkeeper employs a registered unemployed person for 6, 7 or 8 months, it is preferable – for the remaining months of the year – to subsidize his continued work and not to give an allowance of the unemployment fund”, added the Minister of Tourism.
Source: Capital
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