GEPOET Calls For Independent Tourism Ministry

The General Pan-Hellenic Federation of Tourism Enterprises (GEPOET) last month called for tourism to gain full independence and be separated from the culture sector.

GEPOET said the current format that sees the minister, deputy minister and GNTO president involved in “overlapping activities of questionable target, aimed to promote Greek tourism,” is ineffective.

According to GEOPOET, rather than solving problems, the merge of culture and tourism have created new problems, as there is no manager to supervise the total range of tourism activities.

The federation said the government should reduce the amount of consultants instead of financing three different staffs (of the minister, deputy minister and GNTO president) and use that money to advertise and promote the country abroad.

GEPOET concluded that exactly the opposite is happening, as “the government prefers to shut down GNTO offices abroad to reduce costs and be absent from major tourism fairs.” (Greece will appear in a total of 34 international tourism exhibitions this year as opposed to 54 in 2010.)