GNTO to Start 2021 Tourism Promotion for Greece End of October

The Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) is preparing for the 2021 tourism season and has announced plans to launch new promotional actions for Greece by the end of October.

Speaking in Thessaloniki during the FVW Workshop Greece 2020, the annual meeting of the FVW magazine, GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis said that Greece needed to run a year-round campaign in order to meet the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He referred to the country’s #GreecefromHome campaign that ran during the Covid-19 lockdown in Greece, as well as to the campaign that followed in the summer with two messages: “Greek Summer is a state of mind” and “Destination Greece Health First”.

GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis

Fragakis also said that Greece managed to reopen to tourists despite the difficulties, not only due to the Greek government’s efforts, but also because “people in the private sector – businessmen, hoteliers, restaurateurs, employees did their job well”.

Underlining that 2020 is a completely different tourism season this year, the secretary general said that the GNTO did not have high expectations. “But we could not deprive the national economy and local communities of the revenue – whether it is 3 or 4 billion euros,” he said.

Furthermore, Fragakis expressed his belief that tourism will need time to overcome the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It will not take five years to recover, as some say, but we cannot return to the positive performance of the previous year (2019) in 2021… However, the difference now is that we have already  implemented health protocols and safety procedures in tourism and we know we can do even better,” he said.

During the FVW Workshop Greece 2020, Fragakis met with representatives of local tourism bodies including Central Macedonia Vice Governor for Tourism Alexandros Thanos, Hellenic Hoteliers Federation President Grigoris Tasios, Thessaloniki Hotels Association President Andreas Mandrinos and Thessaloniki Convention Bureau President Yiannis Aslanis.