Tour Operators & Travel Agencies

La Greca Travel in downtown Athens this year celebrates 40 years of quality service to Greece’s travel sector. The office, opened in 1965 by Diana Panagiotopoulou and her husband, gradually became well respected for its quality intensive services, which was no easy feat in the Greece of the 60s and 70s.

British Airways last month delivered a two-punch strike to the British travel agent community. Not only does the airline plan to cease paying agent commissions, it also will block IATA agents doing less than £50,000 of business over a 12-month period, a move that will affect an estimated 377 agents by the end of January.

For anyone walking into the new downtown Athens offices of Zorpidis Travel Services it’s difficult to imagine that there’s a tourism crisis. Besides bustling with activity, the office permeates a feeling of success. It will be hardly surprising to see the office expanded within a short period.

Travel technology provider Worldspan is reaping the rewards of its investment program in the Greek travel industry market with further agency wins and several new product introductions over the past several months.

After the initial signing of a cooperation agreement between Amadeus Hellas and Business Travel International early this year, Amadeus quickly began to its new front office system and its Amadeus Vista within the BTI offices in Athens and Thessaloniki.

The battlefield lines are being drawn in the evolving online corporate travel arena. Players positioned at the brink of head-to-head combat, as well as those scuffling behind the front lines, are engaged in an intriguing mix of cooperation and competition. Many are devising unconventional strategies — even partnering with opponents — to infiltrate the online corporate travel space and stake a claim on this promising territory.

To start of the new spring and summer tourism season with a bang, Holiday Malta Hellas moved to new offices on Alexandras Avenue and created a number of new vacation packages, including ones for organized groups and incentives.

The Federation of Travel and Tourism Agencies Association in the Balkan Region is now a reality. During last month’s Tourism Panorama the final signatures from seven presidents of 10 Balkan country travel agency associations entered the cooperation agreement.

In today’s difficult climate most companies attempt to cut costs to the bone and downsize as much as possible. But not Amphitrion Holidays, which is one of the country’s biggest and most successful tourism enterprises. Its most recent expansion activity was to open a new airline representation office and to increase the number of airlines it represents here with the addition of US Airways.

Sportius Hospitality, the first Greek company to specialize in sports tourism, said during a recent presentation that it aims to be the biggest organization here to provide accommodation during next year’s Olympics. Company executives said they would have 5,500 rooms and cruise-ship cabins available on a daily basis.