Athens To Host Luxury Travel Summit Next Week

New geographical, marketing and technological horizons for the luxury and cultural travel sector will be presented at the Mediterranean Luxury Travel Summit 2013 to be held next week in Athens, Greece.

This high-profile event will focus on “Regional cooperation and development” in the Eastern Mediterranean and consist of exclusive discussions and industry panels that will create a platform for dialogue on challenges and opportunities for tourism in the Region.

The two-day summit will offer valuable insight from experts and discussions will focus on:

• combating the “6 months season”
• evaluating tourism investment opportunities and capital need in times of crisis
• using cultural heritage as a tool for sustainable tourism development
• introducing new trends in luxury travel
• linking local production with tourism marketing
• the role of new technologies to improve the image of a destination
• the importance of cruise tourism in the region.

The international summit will bring together internationally-renowned thought leaders and consumer strategists, top travel & tourism executives and key decision makers across the industry, academia and the public sector.

Among the many distinguished speakers are: Egemen Bağış, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator, Turkey; Olga Kefalogianni, Minister of Tourism, Greece; Panos Livadas, Secretary General, Greek National Tourism Organization; Ferit Sahenk, President and CEO, Dogus Holding, Turkey; Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis, President, International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism (IFITT), Director eTourism, Research Lab Bournemouth University; Prof. Ray Iunius, Business Development and Marketing Director, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne; and Paris Tsartas Rector, University of the Aegean.

The Mediterranean Luxury Travel Summit 2013 will take place 7-8 October at the Divani Apollon Palace & Spa in Athens.

The summit is co-hosted by the International Herald Tribune and Kathimerini newspapers and is co-organized by Symeon G. Tsomokos S.A.

National Geographic Travel and Greek Travel Pages (GTP) are the media sponsors of the event.

For more information, click here.