Tour Operators & Travel Agencies

Helen Trentzos has come a long way since she left her job in a Piraeus shipping company, and as a sharp looking young woman opened a travel office in the early 1970s that specialized in seaman travel.

Just a few years after it was first founded in 1975, Piraeus-based Aktina has lead the way for other Greek travel agencies. The office became an IATA member in 1977 and in 1981 the company foresaw new market developments and was one of the few to convert the personal company into a limited company or S.A. At the time the move was considered an unusual one, but since the then Aktina has grown in leaps and bounds.

Nikos and Kostas Pagonis of Athens-based Exclusive Tours last month took local travel agents on a tour of Norwegian Cruise Lines’ cruise vessel Norwegian Dream, which had docked in Piraeus harbor. Exclusive, as the line’s representative in Greece, says it’s off to a new start with the cruise line and will soon announce special package prices and new cruise agendas.

Greek travel agency Manessis recently moved to newly- purchased offices in downtown Athens and is now in the process of complete renovations of these quarters with the assistance of the Stylianides architectural team. The new offices will include the operation of an Internet cafe, according to owners Panos Pournaras and Andreas Manessis.

Mary Souli, general manger of Athens-based Cel Tours, organized a major promotional event in Thessaloniki recently for that area’s travel agents.

For Greek travelers that wish to explore new and exciting Scadinavian destinations, Wayfare Aviation Services has a new product of special interest. In cooperation with the Norwegian Embassy in Greek and with SAS, Wayfare has produced a brochure that allows travelers to explore unspoiled Scadinavian nature in ther own way, now with an organized tour.

Thessaloniki- based Doucas Tours intends to keep its position as one of Greece’s biggest and best travel companies. Earlier this year, the company began plans for a complete reorganization so as to keep up to date with the rapid changes in competition. Reorganization plans should be completed by the close of next year. Recently, the company went ahead with a share capital increase.

Airtour Greece, a subsidiary of German tour operator TUI and its official representative here, has been renamed TUI Hellas. Airtour has been operating here for the past 30 years and is one of the most successful and best-organized offices of its kind in Greece. It hosted some 900,000 visitors to Greece last year.

A decent development in Europe’s tourism industry places the sector within the new globalization sphere where most of the world’s major industries now sit. Last month, C&N Touristik (Condor & Neckermann) made an official hostile takeover bid for the UK’s Thomson Travel Group. The initial bid, in the amount of £1.3 billion, was considered unacceptable, so C&N came back with a bid of 1.53 billion pounds sterling. International analysts expect the bid to be accepted. This ends longtime speculation of the German group’s interest for Thomson’s shares.

Konstantinos Mitsiou of the Amphitrion group of travel companies does things that few in the local travel industry dare. He has created companies that specialize in specific areas of tourism and opened offices in far-flung areas, such as North America, Japan, and perhaps soon, China. He is also one of the very first agents to get involved in cooperation ventures with other travel offices.