Nicholas Kelaiditis Re-elected Chairman of ECTAA’s Tourism Committee

The president of the Hellenic Association of Travel and Tourist Agencies (HATTA), Nicholas Kelaiditis, was recently re-elected as chairman of the Tourism Committee of the European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Associations (ECTAA).

The announcement followed an official meeting of ECTAA’s members in Brussels.

ECTAA is the umbrella organization of travel agents and tour operators across Europe representing over 70,000 members and a mission to support growth and competitiveness in the European travel industry.

“My re-election to this position, once again amid a unique global situation for tourism, brings me face to face with the conditions for a complete restructure of the tourism sector. We are no longer discussing tourism’s restart, but its re-evaluation, following the challenge that the crisis brought upon us,” Kelaiditis said.

According to an announcement by HATTA, as head of ECTAA’s tourism committee, Kelaiditis will include European tourism strategies and development plans as well as research on new industry trends, besides legal and statutory matters high on his agenda.

“Planning a strategy for the course of European tourism is a key issue with many axes to study,” Kelaiditis said, adding that the tourism committee will deal with all issues with care and consistency.

ECTAA’s Tourism Committee is one of its many technical committees that have been established and which are composed of representatives of national delegations of Full Members, who have a specific expertise in the issues that are dealt with by the committee concerned.

The deputy chairman of ECTAA’s tourism committee is Gabrielle Milani from the Italian Federation of Organized Tourism (FTO).

During ECTAA’s meeting in Brussels, its Tourism, Air Matters and Legal committees held parallel meetings and examined issues such as the COVID-pandemic impact on tourism business models, the upcoming revision of the Package Travel Directive and the public consultation on passenger safety regulations.

According to data from ECTAA, tourism is 10 percent of EU’s GPD with 170 billion euros annual turnover.