“Tourism for All 2022”: July 16 applications, says Kikilias

According to the Minister of Tourism, Vassilis Kikilia, the electronic platform for submitting applications to the “Tourism for All 2022” program is expected to open on Saturday, July 16.

Speaking at Open, the Minister of Tourism noted that the e-voucher of 150 euros can be used by beneficiaries until June 2023.

At the same time, the Minister of Tourism also referred to the special program that is “running” for northern Evia – up to 150 euros – and Samos – up to 300 euros – in order to strategically support internal tourism and local entrepreneurship separately in these two regions.

Mr. Kikilias referred to the latest data from Eurostat, emphasizing that Greece is the only country in the European Union with an increase in air traffic this June compared to June 2019.

As the Minister of Tourism underlined, last month, international flights as a whole in the countries of the European Union have decreased by an average of 16% compared to the corresponding period of 2019, except for Greece, which shows an increase of 1%, compared to June 2019. “And that didn’t happen by accident. It is the culmination of the collective work and the proper preparation that we did all the previous period”, emphasized Mr. Kikilias.

The Minister of Tourism, who was on a three-day tour in all four prefectures of Crete, also referred to the great goal of extending the tourist season to twelve months a year, even announcing that the next campaign for sustainable tourism – which is, as he pointed out, the new strong trend in the tourism product worldwide – will start from mountainous Crete.

“Crete has all the guarantees to become a twelve-month tourist destination”, said Mr. Kikilias, bringing as an example the performance of tourist arrivals in the city of Heraklion, which in June exceeded – as he said – half a million. “In June, arrivals to Heraklion reached 597,800, with arrivals from Germany registering a 14.16% increase, from the UK a 14.17% increase and from Austria a 26% increase compared to June 2019. .According to the latest figures, 16,000 travelers arrive here every day, a number that increases to 27,000 during the weekend. In other words, we are talking about almost a stadium that comes every day only to Heraklion, if we tried to draw this parallel. And we all understand what these figures mean for the economy, the business world and primary production. This is how we balance the losses from the Russian tourist market. And I’m really glad to see full shops on my Crete tour“, noted the Minister of Tourism.

Mr. Kikilias referred to the comparative advantages of our country’s alternative destinations and to the efforts that have been made, throughout the previous period, in order to “illuminate” as many unpopular – up to now – destinations throughout Greece as possible. “Look, the Greece brand. The Greece brand is strong, because we worked hard all fall and winter. And the dividend from our tourism product comes, at this moment, to be returned to the average Greek family”, he emphasized.

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