MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions)

This year’s domestic fair, Panorama 2000, held last month at the Peace & Friendship Stadium, proved to be the biggest, the best and the most successful to date. “It was not only the size and the well-designed stands that made this year’s fair so impressive,” said one seasoned exhibitor, “but also the caliber of visitors, both from the professional side and the consumer side.”

With Greece’s largest conference center to date, the Kipriotis Group on the island of Kos will host the Association of British Travel Agents’ (ABTA) annual conference, to be held October 27-31. Greece was chose over several of its Mediterranean competitors including up-and- coming Portugal, which has submitted bids to host the event of three occasions. Some 2,500 representatives of UK travel agents will fly directly to Kos for the convention.

The Mediterranean Travel Fair, MTF, held in Cairo, proved a success. Some 1,200 senior buyers were invited to attend and meet with a host of suppliers during the three day show held in ‘The Cairo International Conference Center’. The first two days were reserved for buyers and trade professionals, while the last day the show was open to the general public.

The Research Institute for Tourism in cooperation with the Athens Hotel Association will hold an International Conference in Athens, August 24-26, 2000. The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars, practitioners and students of tourism, recreation, leisure and other related disciplines to identify areas of common research issues as well as methodological and analytical approaches.

Greece’s domestic tourism fair, which has opened its doors to international exhibitors for the first time, expects to host a record number, more than 250, of exhibitors this year. From the international arena, organizer Kappa Exhibitions expects participation from countries such as Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkey and Libya. The fair, which presents almost every possible Greek tourism destination, and the tourism products available in each, takes place from May 10 to 14 at the Peace and Friendship Stadium.

With a pavilion of 800 square meters that hosted some 60 Greek tourism enterprises, Greece stood out as one of the big stars at this year’s ITB Berlin tourism fair. According to the 60-plus exhibitors from here, Greece will welcome a record number of German visitors this year.

Greece’s domestic tourism fair, Tourism Panorama, expands this year to include participation from the international arena. Organizer Kappa exhibitions expects participation from countries such us Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkey and Libya, which changes its tourism policy and now attempts to entice visitors from Europe. Kappa says the inclusion of these countries is the first step in its gradual process to bring the fair up to international status.

The second European Congress of Marinas will be held from May 11-13, 2000, and hosted by the municipality of Lavrion, which has one of the largest marinas in Greece. The biennial conference is under the auspices of the Ministry of Development and the Hellenic National Tourism Organization.

Thirty-one U.S. companies arrived in Greece recently to attend the first-ever tourism infrastructure conference (ITIC ’99) sponsored and organized by the U.S. Embassy in Athens.