Athens Wins Bid to Host City Break 2007

Alexis Galinos, ATEDA’s managing director at the press conference with Fani Palli-Petralia, minister of tourism, and Athens Mayor Theodoros Behrakis.

Athens will host next year’s City Break exhibition, and European Cities Tourism’s (ECT) annual conference, which is also the sponsor of the exhibition. The winning bid, submitted by the Athens Tourism and Economic Development Agency (ATEDA), was prepared with the strong support of the ministry of tourism.

ECT, the leading professional tourism network for European cities, promotes and links more than 100 European cities from 30 countries. City Break is an annual international business-to-business networking event geared exclusively for travel trade professionals who specialize in the city break market.

At last month’s press conference, Athens Mayor Theodoros Behrakis said, “City Break Expo is a unique, specialized, international exhibition to facilitate agreements between visitors and exhibitors and also stimulate global media interest.”

The City Break exhibition is a focused business workshop using a system of pre-scheduled one-to-one appointments, giving buyers the opportunity to source new destinations and meet with existing suppliers.

The city break market is growing rapidly and now accounts for 38 percent of all European outbound travel, as more travelers move away from traditional annual summer holidays to shorter, more frequent trips. In 2005, city break travel increased 20 percent compared with the three percent increase in sun and beach holidays.

Mayor Behrakis said that this is a “first-class opportunity to bring Athens back into the international tourism industry spotlight and to further strengthen the city’s positive image. ATEDA’s goal is to make Athens a year-round destination, rather than a stopover as is the case today.”

Trade professionals from all over Greece are encouraged to attend the event to take advantage of the opportunity to meet travel agents from around the world interested in booking packages to Greece’s other cities, such as Thessaloniki, Patras, Volos, and Herakleion.

ATEDA, established in May 2005, is the official tourism board of the city of Athens, and coordinates between tourism agencies and organizations in Attica.