McKinsey Presents Key Tourism Products That Will Boost Arrivals To Greece

Some 3.3 billion euros should be invested in tourism every year for each of the next eight years in order to attain the target of 24 million international arrivals per year, McKinsey & Company informed officials of the Greek Government and tourism professionals on 22 October in Athens.

While presenting the report “Tourism Strategic Planning 2021” during the 12th Tourism & Development Conference of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE), the managing director of McKinsey, George Tsopelas, said Greece’s main priority should be the creation of a “strong and diversified” portfolio of tourism products.

In order to establish the tourism strategic planning of Greece, McKinsey has defined six key products Greece should focus on through investments over the next 8-10 years.

Greece’s key tourism products – priorities

1. Sun & Beach
– Introduction of sub-products that enhance the overall value/attractiveness of destinations, boosted by an increase in hotel capacity oriented to make improvements towards higher accommodation categories
– Targeted interventions in transport
– A revised mechanism and certification system
– The creation of “themes” to shape Unique Selling points (USP’s)

2. City Break
– Promotion of Athens and Thessaloniki as city break destinations and focus on the development of four “pillars”:

• events
• development of thematic walks
• exploitation of coastline (for tourism purposes)
• launch of “City Card”

3. MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions)
– Establishment of targeted promotions to international associations and a coordinated and simplified bidding process for conferences.

4. Cultural Tourism
– Upgrade of infrastructure and services in key heritage sites and development of museum features (introduction of digital services)

5. Nautical Tourism
– Cruise: infrastructure improvements to increase homeporting from Greek ports
– Pleasure Boats: construction and/or upgrading of marinas to a higher category/class that offer basic services 24/7.

6. Medical Tourism
– Full use of existing infrastructure
– Targeted promotion of products with competitive advantages
– B2B agreements on a transnational level

More into the report, a strategy has been developed for each of Greece’s key tourism products that include appropriate marketing techniques, client segmentation, infrastructure development and promotional strategies.

“The implementation of this plan will bring immediate results to the country’s effort to boost growth and recover. Our desire is to work closely with the State and implement this ambitious project with unity and vision,” SETE’s president, Andreas Andreadis, said.