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“The socio-political events and the effects of the economic crisis that has plagued our country and its citizens, has transformed Greece into an undesirable destination that frightens organizers, sponsors and conference delegates and presents Greek professionals as unreliable and insolvent,” Hellenic Association of Professional Congress Organizers (HAPCO) President Dinos Astras stressed last month during his opening speech at the association’s 7th Pan-Hellenic Conference.

“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.

Travelport, a broad-based business services provider to the global travel industry, held a workshop last month for travel agencies in Rethymno, Crete, to brief travel agents on the company’s new tools and solutions.

“The country’s reconstruction can be started only through strong entrepreneurship from strong investments that will create new jobs and this must be understood by the government, trade unions and all of society,” MIG’s chairman, Andreas Vgenopoulos, said last month at the inauguration ceremony of the Blue Star Delos vessel in Piraeus.

The Greek tourism sector may have been somewhat reluctant in participating in the 27th Philoxenia International Tourism Exhibition due to the country’s financial crisis but according to Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister George Nikitiadis, 2011 could be easily labeled as a “record year” for Greek tourism.

“The world’s governments should do more to support travel and tourism,” World Travel Market’s Chairman Fiona Jeffery told the industry during her opening speech at the tourism fair at ExCel in London, UK, held this year 7-10 November.

Although the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises’ (SETE) tenth annual tourism and development conference was slightly overshadowed by Greek political instability and uncertainty last month it will remain in history as a conference first of its kind that took a step further and held a dialogue between the Government and all opposition parties.

“Our coastal transport is shipping but also tourism and the tourism development of our country is based on the tourism development of the islands, which demands good ferry services,” Mihalis Sakellis, the CEO of Blue Star Ferries, said while speaking at the “Shipping Today and Tomorrow” conference held in Athens in late September.

“The coming years could be very exciting for the Greek tourism product as long as the promises of its establishment within the central development policy actually take place,” the president of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, Yiorgos Tsakiris, said recently during the tourism session of the Capital+Vision multi-conference held at Hilton Athens in late September 2011.

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.