“American travelers, firstly, stay many days in Athens and secondly – as the shopkeepers tell me – these tourists are high spenders and don’t even ask how much something costs before they buy it,” said the Minister of Tourism indicatively
More than 1 million travelers and much more than 1 billion euros in revenue is expected to be brought to Greece next season by direct flights from the USA, said Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias in an interview he gave to ERT.
“From March 11, Delta’s first flight from New York is coming and – pay attention – so far 56 flights per week from the USA and Canada have already been announced. As the winter and spring progresses, more flights will be added,” said Mr. Kikilias, noting that the last direct flight of the previous season from the US was on January 10, meaning that Athens now welcomes American travelers almost throughout the year. during the year.
In particular, regarding the high performance recorded by the capital in tourism, the minister emphasized that this is a great achievement of all the people in the sector, primary production, the commercial world and the EOT which carries out campaigns 12 months a year. “Especially the American travelers, firstly they stay many days in Athens and secondly – as the shopkeepers tell me – these tourists are high spenders and don’t even ask how much something makes before they buy it. This is very important to us. At the same time, products from the Greek land are consumed in hotels, resorts and health care stores, supported by a large part of Greek society, the middle class. Also, construction, since 8 out of 10 investments in the country are now touristic. Investments in infrastructure but also in hotels and resorts. Therefore, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of workers”, he said characteristically.
About the predictions for the coming tourist season he pointed out that the picture that exists from the number of pre-bookings is excellent with the performance of 2023 expected to be better than that of 2022, especially in the first months, as last year the “Omicron” variant and the war in Ukraine were significant inhibitory factors. However – despite the crises – with strategy and hard, collective work, the travel revenue of 2022 approaches 18 billion euros.
Finally, regarding the ongoing debate in the Parliament on the motion of no confidence, the minister stated that this is a tactical move by SYRIZA. “This image of mud, very high-pitched, personal accusations on both sides, the way the main opposition thinks it will instrumentalize an issue in pre-election time, goes out, to the society and to the citizens, and it doesn’t express me, it doesn’t represents.
It is obvious that in this way the main colleagues of SYRIZA essentially do not want any light to be shed on a very important and very serious case, in which the Prime Minister himself took difficult decisions six months ago and himself initiated the procedures in terms of Greek justice and regarding the Greek Parliament for the investigation of the matter” characteristically said Mr. Kikilias.
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