Interior Minister Inaugurates ‘Tourist Police Visitors Help Office’ in Athens

Greek Interior Minister Panagiotis Kouroublis cutting the ribbon for the opening of the Tourist Police Visitors Help Office in Athens. He is with Government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili and Alternate Minister for Citizens’ Protection Nikos Toskas.

Greek Interior Minister Panagiotis Kouroublis inaugurated on Thursday the long-awaited police-manned tourist help office in Athens.

The new office aims to support Greek tourism by providing assistance and necessary information to visitors and tourists. It is manned by foreign language-speaking (English, French, Italian and Spanish) Greek police officers from the Department of Tourism Police and the Security Service of Attica.

Tourists and visitors to Athens can file complaints or charges concerning loss/theft of travel documents/objects. Necessary certificates can be issued for them by police officers in a timely manner.

Inauguration ceremony of the Tourist Police Visitors Help Office in Athens – Yiorgos Tsakiris, president of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels; Yannis Panousis, former Alternate Minister of Public Order; Gerasimos Zacharatos, Deputy Secretary General Tourism Ministry; and Alexandros Vassilikos, president of the Athens – Attica & Argosaronic Hotel Association.

The Hellenic Chamber of Hotels and the Athens, Attica and Argosaronic Hotel Association applauded the initiative, which is expected to improve the city’s services towards visitors and also paves the way for the launch of more collaborations and synergies between the public and private sector to address the many problems the Greek capital faces.

“Especially at a time when tourism is internationally focused on the experience of visitors, the Visitors Help Office in Athens comes to strengthen and support the effort to boost the experience our city offers”, the two tourism bodies said in a joint announcement.

The Visitors Help Office in Athens is located on 4 Dragatsaniou Street on the ground floor at Klafthmonos Square and is fully equipped and connected to the electronic nationwide network “Police on Line”, which offers access to all electronic applications that facilitate on the spot help to visitors.

The office will operate on a permanent basis, daily from 7:30 am until 10 pm. The contact telephone is 210-3222230 and 210-3222232 (also a fax).

The initiative comes after an agreement signed between the hotel chamber and the Secretary General for Public Order in July.

The hotel chamber is covering the rental costs for space and the hotel association of Athens has provided the necessary office equipment.