“Vrachna” for them tourist enterprises it seems that it will continue to be in 2023 as well lack of workforce in tourism, as the efforts being made seem unlikely to bear fruit this season, given that the deficit, estimated at 80,000 people (including restaurants and shops), remains unreimbursable.

The above resulted from today’s position of its president Panhellenic Federation of Hoteliers (POX), Grigoris Tassiou, on the occasion of a press conference for the presentation of the program “Cap Tour”in the context of which Greece and Bulgaria join forces in the tourism sector.

As Mr. Tassios said, the workforce from Bulgaria and Albaniawhich a decade ago supplied Greek tourism businesses with workers, has now run out, with the result that businesses in the sector are turning their attention to Asia and countries like the Bangladesh.

In this direction, they expect to see how initiatives that have been undertaken during this time will develop, which will improve the ways of attracting transferable workers. “Bringing in workers from third countries is considered a taboo, but taboos are meant to be broken,” said Mr. Tassios, emphasizing that businesses would like to have Greeks workers, but unfortunately they cannot find them.

“The goal is for specific people to come, certified, with six to nine month contracts, with the same labor relations and conditions as the Greeks. I don’t see the issue being resolved in 2023, but we have to combine programs and dialogue, in order to get results in 2024. Within this setting, the idea of ​​creating visa centers, for example, in Asian countries from where they can such workers come, so as to facilitate the issuance of visa D. A great effort is also being made by Mrs. Vultepsi for the approximately 35,000 immigrants who have political asylum and are in the camps, which means that they have a VAT number and an AMKA and can enter the work process ” he noted and added that even in this case, “it is difficult to get ahead of the season”.

The “CapTour” program

In the meantime, if the market calls for workers, especially trained ones, to fill the big gap in personnel, education, know-how and marketing are at the heart of the cross-border program “CapTour: An Initiative on Capitalizing Tourism’s prospects of the region”, which takes place within the framework of INTERREG VA “Greece-Bulgaria 2014-2020” and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and by national resources of the participating countries.

It’s about program with POX as the lead partner, in which the University of Macedonia and two Bulgarian tourism bodies also participate as partners: the Union of Hoteliers, Restaurateurs and Travel Agents of Sandanski and the Rhodopes Hoteliers and Restauranteurs Association. In the program, which – as pointed out by Sonia Kougioni, assistant project manager – “the goal is to strengthen the small and medium enterprises of the cross-border area of ​​Greece – Bulgaria (Regional Units of Drama, Evros, Thessaloniki, Kavala, Xanthi, Rodopi and Serres)”, participate so far 25 Greek companies, the goal is to reach 50 (and around 20 Bulgarian).

The program is addressed to new entrants and start-ups, self-employed, graduates of accounting, finance, business administration and tourism professionals. It includes a set of actions and consulting, lasting two years, including seven two-day thematic workshops. It is developed in the following thematic sections: innovation, extroversion, social economy, corporate social responsibility and travel blogging. In fact, in its context, on March 23-24, the 1st business forum for tourism will be held in Sandanski, with the participation of 100 businessmen from the two countries. The aim of POX is to participate in other similar programs as well, since the new calls for INTERREG are opening soon.

“We develop extroversion through the program by providing know-how to the neighboring countries that still have a small number of tourists and we exchange know-how, promoting our country at the same time” noted Mr. Tassios, while to the question about the tourist flows on both sides between Greece and Bulgaria, he said that especially in the last decade, many Bulgarians have acquired a second residence in Central Macedonia, while the arrivals of purely tourists (not workers from the neighborhood) exceeded 300,000. Conversely, the visitation is low, as the Greeks mainly prefer the ski resort of Bansko, while Bulgaria welcomes tourism from various countries and on the Black Sea coast. “Bulgaria looks us in the eyes to get know-how in tourism, but it is not our competitor, even though it is cheap” concluded Mr. Tassios.