Trade Associations

The International Air Transport Association recently announced a revised industry financial forecast for airline losses this year and 2009 and evaluated that the difficult business conditions will remain.

The European Union last month gave its consent to Greece’s plan to privatize the Greek carrier Olympic Airlines next year, but said the airline must pay back 850 million euros in illegal state aid it received between 2005-2007.

The interministerial committee for denationalization last month gave the ‘green light’ for the utilization of regional airports by private investors.

Minister of Economy and Finance Yiorgos Alogoskoufis recently announced new tax measures that raised the concern of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels.

The board of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels recently discussed key issues with Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos that concern both the hotel industry and the health ministry.

After the recent homicide of an Australian tourist who was beaten to death, allegedly by a Greek bouncer on Mykonos, Tourism Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos convened an emergency meeting with officials from other ministries in the framework of setting up a Crisis Management Committee to troubleshoot incidents that occur in tourist areas of Greece.

The tourism ministry recently released tourist traffic figures, which contradicts newspaper reports that refer to a ‘freefall’ of Greek tourism.

Tourism Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos recently signed a joint ministerial decision that sets the necessary specifications of theme parks for their inclusion within the development law. The current development law is the first that foresees the financial backing of theme parks.

The Greek National Tourism Organization launched its first office in Romania in an effort to strengthen the tourist traffic to Greece and increase the Romanian tourism flow by the promotion of all-year-round travel opportunities.

The Hellenic Chamber of Hotels and the Research Institute for Tourism recently expressed to the secretary of economy and finance, Yiannis Papathanasiou, the tourism sector’s need for an immediate reform of the development law.