Olympia Anastasopoulou at the conference “Νextisnow 2022”: “Tourism supports not only our current account balance but also a considerable number of investments”

The Secretary General of Tourism Policy and Development, Mrs. Olympia Anastasopoulou participated in the conference “Νextisnow 2022: Greek Tourism, a national affair! Possibilities and Prospects” organized by Next is Now and Dome Consulting, at the panel “Urban Tourism | Destination 365 days a year.”

More specifically, the Secretary General of Tourism Policy and Development, pointed out that “greek tourism, which contributes to regional development and social cohesion, supports not only investments but also our current account balance. It is a sector which doubly boosts economic activity. It is the locomotive of the Greek economy, as 1 in 4 euros of the country’s GDP comes, indirectly or directly, from tourism activity; we are talking about 25% of GDP”.

In addition, Mrs. Olympia Anastasopoulou stressed that “the results of the prolongment of the tourist season in our country are already visible, which together with the spatial expansion of our tourism product, are key elements of the national strategy for Greek tourism until 2030.

In this change, an important role played the fact that we worked methodically and systematically since the beginning of 2022 with (a) the campaign of the Greek National Tourism Organization “Greece does have a winter” and (b) the promotion of various forms of thematic tourism, while (c) announcing the start of the tourist season earlier than ever (1/3) with direct flights from the USA on March 7, and (d) also the strengthening of leisure travel,  with the port of Piraeus as a homeport”.

Finally, the Secretary General of Tourism Policy and Development stated that “the rapid development of city tourism is influenced by global trends in the tourism market and involves specialized challenges for the cities and their governance”, while she underlined that “the state has been tasked, amongst other things, with the development of infrastructure and the creation of a pro-investment framework. Nowadays, 8 out of 10 investments made in the country are tourism-related”.