To quote Angela Gerekou, president of the Greek National Tourism Organization, “The data we have now are encouraging. We expect to see a good summer season. People feel the need to get away from the big problems.”
For its management of the pandemic, Greece has been commended and following an initial discontinuity of bookings due to the crisis of Ukraine-Russia, for 2022, there are no cancellations whatsoever, she said.
“We want to see this conflict end so we can get back to normalcy. We firmly believe that tourism will be the engine of growth again,” Deputy Minister of Tourism Sofia Zacharaki said.
For Greek economy, tourism is usually a strong pillar, accounting for about a fifth of its GDP, as per the Central Bank of Greece.
Greece registered a record 32 million tourist arrivals and 18 billion euros (19.5 billion U.S. dollars) in tourism revenues in 2019. The sector is working hard in today’s context to get over COVID imposed challenges followed by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
As the China-Greece Year of Culture and Tourism is in progress, the two officials explained that Greece is keen to greet more Chinese tourists once again.
Gags: Greece, Greek economy, tourism
