Programs for Athens Festival 2001 To be Ready in September

Development Minister Nikos Christodoulakis promises to have the complete Athens Festival program for 2001 ready, complete with with confirmed dates and times, by the fall. The minister says this very up-marker Greek cultural program could be very effective for enticing visitors, but travelers must know dates of events well in advance in order to program their trips accordingly. He also believes Greece could cooperate with other EU countries to create cultural tourism packages.

The minister appears to have done his homework. According to a recent World Tourism Organization report, “destination Europe” its now destination Schengen area. The report says people who come from countries where they are obliged to get visitors΄ visas have been encouraged to put more countries on their itineraries since intra-European travel is easier.

“The bigger space within its vastly expanded borders gives the tourist the opportunity of enjoying a wide variety of experience without the need to overcome administrative obstacles along the way” says WTO’s chief of quality of tourism development, Henryk Handszuch.

He adds that working together, countries also can stagger seasonal events and diminish the burden on the environment and infrastructure of too many people concentrating in too small are within as short space of time.