Tsampikos Moschatos

President,
Panhellenic Federation of Tourist Enterprises

Philoxenia 2005 greeting.

With the close of the century, tourism has become the world’s biggest industry. No other sector of the economy can replace it because except for the fact that it drives all other sectors of the economy, tourism investments have immediate results. Tourism also creates jobs and brings the national economy precious foreign exchange.

Promotional and development tools for tourism include trade exhibitions. Greece’s Philoxenia fair, however, although the 21st, has yet to reach its goal as an international exhibition if we exclude participation from some Balkan countries.

After the successful organization here of the Olympic Games, and the successive efforts of tourism development ministry and tourism enterprises who helped the start the upwards trend in tourism development, it is time for the heads of Philoxenia to develop the exhibition into a true international tourism fair. We are ready to assist.

This year, the development of tourism seems satisfactory and we must work together to upgrade our country’s tourism profile, which concerns not only tourism but also our standard of living. In turn, this is beneficial to business and the national economy.

However, all the advertising and efforts of business and government is lost if local and regional authorities do not care for their environment and the cleanliness of their towns and regions. The reality is that if you have a good mayor who looks after the environment, order, cleanliness, noise pollution, disposal, and so on, then you have tourism development. If not, present tourism development will be destroyed.