ITB Berlin Opens, Greece Optimistic for 2015 Tourism Season

GNTO stand: Panos Livadas, General Secretary of GNTO; Michael Muller, Governing Mayor of Berlin; Norbert Fiebig, President of the German Travel Association (DRV); Elena Koundoura, Deputy Minister of Tourism; Dr. Michael Frenzel, President of the Federal Association of the German Tourism Industry; Iris Gleicke, Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministery for Economic Affairs and Energy; Dr. Christian Goke, Chief Executive Officer, Messe Berlin GmbH.

Greece will aim this year to win more visitors from Western Europe, the Unites States and Germany, Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura told the press on Wednesday, the opening day for ITB Berlin.

Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura,  Angela Varela from GNTO and Jannis Papadakis from Destination Touristic Services at ITB Berlin 2015.

The minister visited the Greek stand and wished all tourism professionals and regional bodies a successful tourism season.

While in Berlin, the tourism minister’s agenda includes meetings with the Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization Taleb Rifai, Berlin Mayor Michael Muller, major tour operators and travel journalists.

Greece is enjoying its tourism recovery at ITB Berlin 2015. According to market research institute GfK, year-to-date bookings for 2015 to Greece from Germany, by end of January 2015, were up by 12.8 percent compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, TUI revealed that it was experiencing good sales for Greece and German tour operator Schauinsland-Reisen also said that Greece was selling particularly well this year.

ITB Berlin 2015: Busy 1st day for Greece.

Greece hit record arrivals last year — a 23 percent increase in tourism arrivals over 2013 — and even better is expected for this season, tourism professionals underline.

“Early bookings and the increase in scheduled flights to Greece indicate that the 24.5 million visitors that Greece welcomed in 2014 –- including 2.5 million cruise ships arrivals –- will be surpassed this year,” said Andreas Andreadis, president of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) during a press conference.

Some 70 Greek enterprises are participating as co-exhibitors at the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) stand.

ITB Berlin will run until March 8.

More than 10,000 exhibitors from around 190 countries and regions are presenting their innovative products and services in the 26 display halls on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds. Over 100,000 trade visitors are expected to attend the world’s largest travel trade show in order find out about all the tourism industry’s products and services at this year’s event.