Poll: Tourism Deemed Most Important For Crete’s Development

Almost 40 percent of the citizens of Crete believe that more emphasis should be given on tourism so development can be achieved on the island, a recent poll carried out by the Technical University of Crete said.

Tourism is followed by the primary sector (24.8 percent), trade (11.1 percent), exports (8.4 percent), shipping (4.6 percent), construction (5.3 percent), industry (4.3 percent) and insurance and banking services (1 percent).

According to the poll, public opinion on the issue of “development on Crete” appears slightly torn.

In particular, 48.8 percent said development is connected with environmental impact and destruction, while the opposite opinion on development has an equally large percentage (46.3 percent).

Tourism

When asked in regards to Crete’s tourism infrastructure, the vast majority (60.8 percent) said the island’s infrastructure was sufficient to meet the needs of visitors.

Also, 15,1 percent said new hotels needed to be constructed on Crete to strengthen the tourism product; 1 in 10 Cretans preferred to have many small hotels on the island; and 9,6 percent of respondents said they wanted big hotels on the island.

Finally, a small percentage of just 3.8 percent said the amount of hotels and beds on the island should be reduced.

The Pancretan survey was conducted 13-15 March 2013. The organization of research, analysis of results and supervision of data collection was conducted by Giorgos Matalliotakis, TUC Doctorate.