MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions)

Despite tensions in the Middle East, the Mediterranean Travel Fair 2006 (MTF) will be held in Cairo from September 5th through the 7th, and by all indications it is set for a great start. Trade pre-registration has exceeded expectations and is currently up 100% from the corresponding period last year.

Last month, Helexpo, Greece’s national exhibition agency, signed a five-year renewable lease with Olympic Athletic Center of Athens (OAKA) to construct a new exposition center on a 20-stremma area of the center’s grounds.

This year’s Philoxenia tourism fair, November 16-19, expects to welcome a barrage of newcomers from the neighboring Balkan countries. Organizer Helexpo says a hosted buyers’ program as well as attendance by Balkan tourism ministers and foreign journalists ensure a strong Southeast Europe presence this year.

The first pan-European forum for agro-tourism was held recently in Epirus. Organized by Agrotouristiki S.A., the state organization for alternative tourism development, the forum will be held annually to promote agro-tourism in Greece, and to increase cooperation between Greek and European agro-tourism businesses.

The continual changing of advertising companies selected to promote Greece every year has resulted in a lack of continuity in the image Greece projects and no distinct brand identity, said Cleopatra Veloutsou, a Glasgow University lecturer, at last month’s Second International Conference on Tourism held in Athens.

The music of Mikis Theodorakis and Greek traditional folkdances were performed at the third Beijing International Tourism Exhibit (BITE) last month, during which Greece was the honored country.

The first forum, “Historic Relations and New Horizons for Cooperation,” is being organized for September 14 and 15 by the Arab-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce & Development, and will be held in Athens.

Although this year’s Panorama welcomed a barrage of new visitors, the number of tourism professionals to the fair appeared minimal when compared with past years. Most said the venue, Expo Athens, Anthoussa, was too far away for them.

Ministers and government representatives from the EU-25, the accession and candidate countries, EFTA/EEA and the Western Balkans met in Vienna last month for a European conference of tourism ministers.

The capital city’s first International Tourism Salon (ITS) – Athens 2006, will be held November 30 through December 3 at the Piraeus Port Authority Center (OLP) announced Giorgos Karachristos, president and managing director of MACT S.A., the event organizer.