GNTO: Greek Tourism Shows Resilience Despite Challenges

Greek tourism may be facing challenges these days, but is showing exceptional resilience, the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) said in a statement on Friday.

“Arrival numbers are showing a rise — almost 7 percent in the whole country — which is unprecedented considering that 2015 follows two years of historic records of Greek tourism”, the GNTO said and noted that foreign tour operators, such as the German Travel Association (Deutscher Reise-Verband – DRV) have confirmed that tourists are not cancelling their planned trips these days.

The GNTO did, however, point out that last minute bookings are down. “This is reversible as long as we return to normality soon”, the GNTO said, adding that it predicts that 2015 will be a positive year for tourism.

The GNTO also reminded that ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) will hold its next travel convention in the Peloponnese this October and that TUI recently presented its new program in Crete to more than 70 German travel bloggers and journalists. Also, the USTOA (Association of Travel Agents USA) recently stated that the crisis will not affect Greek tourism.

In addition, the GNTO referred to the support Greek tourism is receiving from major international media outlets such as CNN, Telegraph, USA Today, Bloomberg and Guardian, which are encouraging tourists to choose Greece for their holidays, underlining that the bank crisis will not affect them.

The GNTO also noted that concern, due to the political and economic situation, is understandable.

“Public statements, however, based on non-confirmed information, lead to an inaccurate picture that is not based on actual data and injures tourism and the image of our country”, the GNTO underlined.