Prospects For Conference Tourism

Nikos Skoulas, president of the Minoan International College, received an award for his offer to conference tourism by HAPCO’s president Dinos Astras. At the conference Mr. Skoulas gave a speech entitled “The Three-dimensional crisis in Greek tourism-recipes for recovery.”

The conference tourism market is aware of the global financial crisis, but manages to minimize its effects to a large extent, was the conclusion of the 5th Pan-Hellenic Conference for Business and Conference Tourism in Thessaloniki. The Hellenic Association of Professional Congress Organizers (HAPCO) organized the conference.

The conference focused on “Strategies of Regional Development of Conference Tourism in Times of Depression” and included many presentations of delegates from Greece and the Balkans.

According to the presentations the solution to tackle the crisis is the cooperation for conference tourism and particularly on a Balkan level.

HAPCO announced that it intends to propose actions for the regional development of conference tourism through information seminars and workshops throughout other regions of Greece, such as Rodos, Crete, Xanthi, Alexandroupolis and Ioannina.

According to HAPCO, its goal is to show the conference possibilities of those regions following partnerships with hoteliers and tour operators.

The conference was held under the auspices of the Tourism Ministry and the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels. Communication sponsors included GTP.