Destinations

Contrary to what many believe, Kalavryta’s popular ski center, said to be one of the best in Greece, is not the only reason to visit the town. According to the locals, Kalavryta also exists on the weekdays and is not only a weekend ski resort.

Athens continued to satisfy its visitors in 2011 despite the serious problems the destination faced in 2010, according to a study by GBR Consulting on customer satisfaction and the performance of hotels in Attica.

“The hotels in Athens are collapsing,” was the comment of the Athens-Attica Hotel Association in a recent announcement in regards to the city’s hotel performance for the month of November 2011. Αccording to data from the association, the average hotel occupancy in Athens-Attica dropped by 23.63 percent last November.

Homo Evolution’s Nikos Sofianos (marketing director), Giannis Papagiannopoulos (president) and Simon Vasiliadis (project manager) with IGLTA Ambassador to Greece, Orhideea Rosu, at the gay tourism and entrepreneurship conference held recently at the Les Lazaristes hotel in Thessaloniki.

Thessaloniki recorded 31.09 percent more foreign overnights at its hotels during the first nine months of 2011 when compared to the corresponding period in 2010, while overnights by Greeks fell by 5.5 percent, according to recent figures released by the Thessaloniki Hotels Association.

“Thessaloniki is a city that does not discriminate and is friendly to all who wish to visit,” Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris said at a recent conference on gay tourism and entrepreneurship held in the northern Greek city.

The Hellenic Association of Travel and Tourist Agencies (HATTA) called a sudden meeting last month to focus on the image of downtown Athens and discuss the negative impact of the city’s tourism. The purpose of the meeting was to examine interventions to improve the image of the city through initiatives that would be undertaken by institutional bodies and tourism professionals.

“With the current bipartisan composition of the Culture and Tourism Ministry, we will not understand, justify, explain, accept or even tolerate the possibility of failure to implement concrete promises, commitments and agreed procedures towards a common direction,” Yiannis Retsos, president of the Athens-Attica Hotel Association said in late November 2011 during the association’s 42nd Annual General Assembly.

World Tourism Day was celebrated on 27 September globally around the theme “Tourism–Linking Cultures” and highlighted tourism’s role in bringing the cultures of the world together and promoting global understanding through travel.

Bookings in four- and five-star hotels of the Greek capital in August recorded a slight increase of 1.13 percent over the same month last year, according to data released recently by the Athens-Attica Hotel Association.