A note by the publisher

Two very different yet very unique members of the Greek travel trade are no longer with us. Last month, two of our most cherished members died of heart attacks. Our sincere condolences to the families of Marios Angelis and Stratos Vassilikos.

Marios Angelis, who would have been 61 years old this year, was a polished member of the trade. He studied economics in Sweden before joining up with the Hellenic Tourism Organization where he served as its director for Scandinavia for more than seven years. He later worked in managerial positions for the hotel and travel office sector in Belgium and North America, and on his return to Greece became heavily involved in tourism journalism. Although most of his tourism writings were published in economic newspapers and journals, the public perhaps best knows him from his series of travel documentaries on Greece.

Stratos Vassilikos, 56 years old, was more a self-made man yet a true gentleman. He completed hotel studies in Switzerland in his early years. After working long and hard in the trade, he took his savings and opened a travel office in the early 1980s and later branched out into hotels. His Airotel group now includes a travel agency network, a group of five hotels and spacious central offices that house the on-line Airotel reservations systems. Mr. Vassilikos was also a very active member in trade politics as a member of the Panhellenic Hoteliers Association. For the past year and a half he was the association’s general secretary and previous to that an active board member.