Eurobank Chief Says RRF Tools to Drive Greek Tourism Sector Growth

Eurobank CEO Fokion Karavias. Photo source: Greek Travel Pages.

More than 600 million euros in funding, 200 million euros of which coming from Eurobank, are expected to go into Greece’s tourism infrastructure, said Eurobank CEO Fokion Karavias during the 31st the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) General Assembly held in Athens on Wednesday.

Karavias said funding for tourism including grants amounted to 2 billion euros demonstrating the importance of the sector for the Greek economy.

Describing Eurobank as the “bank of Greek tourism”, Karavias confirmed that “hotel investment projects valued at 600 million euros have already been included in the Recovery and Resilience Fund, with a wide geographical spread, of which over a third, more than 200 million euros, through our bank”.

Among others, he said the bank would also be providing consulting services to tourism enterprises focusing on ways to absorb RRF resources. He added that the funding included the smallest businesses in the sector and was mainly aimed at facilitating the sector’s green transition and digital transformation.

He went on to note that the tourism industry’s recovery was at a critical point. “It is time to look to the future and to the prospects of tourism as a whole,” he said, underlining the importance now more than ever of the national tourism strategy – “Greek Tourism 2030 | Action Plans – 2030” – tabled last year by SETE and covering the country’s 13 regions, with dozens of infrastructure proposals, 2,000 actions in 36 destinations.

In this direction, Karavias said he would be visiting Rhodes in the coming days to present Eurobank programs to tourism stakeholders in the Dodecanese on occasion of the presentation of an INSETE study for the island region.