Satisfaction for this year’s progress tourist season which is heading towards its end, express the tourism agents of Rhodes who believe that even in November the tourist traffic will develop better than in other years.

Both Rhodes and the other islands of the Dodecanese recorded increased traffic despite the fact that the island of Rhodes was tested by the fire last July, which acted as a deterrent to tourist traffic for about four weeks.

He expressed his satisfaction with the season in statements to APE-MPE president of the Association of Certified Guides of the Dodecanese Dimitris Salachouriseven saying that October was a great month and that November will be just as good.

In particular, he pointed out that “the season was very good. The tour guides worked, I have no details but it went very well. There is only the complaint from the shopkeepers about the purchasing power of the tourists, but we have these tourists. Rhodes is a mass tourism destination and we have to meet the demands of this world. It would be good to keep our services as high as possible with courtesy and a smile. And I hope that every year we improve in this area.”

October was one of the best in recent years and November, from what I see, will do just as well, Mr. Salachouris pointed out to APE-MPE, stressing that “not only because of the small extension of the season until the middle of the month, but also because of the cruise ships, as some come to our port instead of going to Israel and Egypt because of the war. I hope the war ends there quickly.”

“The July fire affected us for a very short time. The agencies were quick to respond, the feedback was significant and we quickly reversed the media perception of Rhodes across Europe. Our visitors realized that we are a safe destination and within two weeks we had recovered” also stressed Mr. Salachouris.

TUI executives in Rhodes

With the CEO of TUI Group Sebastian Ebel and the chairman of the TUI Care Foundation Thomas Ellerbeck the regional governor of South Aegean met the previous days in Rhodes George Hatzimarkoswith whom he discussed the organization’s performance during this year’s period on our island.

As the regional governor announced, the TUI group is expected to record a 10% increase this year in the number of tourists it brought for holidays to Rhodes, while an increase will also be noted in the other islands of the region to which it transports tourists.

In particular, Mr. Hatzimarkos stated the following:

“Tourist 2023 is coming to an end with excellent results and this despite the great challenges we encountered along the way everywhere and especially in Rhodes.

The TUI group in our islands will close with an increase, despite the fact that overall the European market and economy is in recession. And Rhodes, despite the forest fires in July, closes with an overall increase and with the increase of only the TUI group moving to 10%. We are already preparing for 2024 with the same seriousness and professionalism that brought the results that gave us all strength and optimism”

Scheme for pensioners for winter tourism

But we will have tourists in Rhodes in the coming weeks as well. These are retirees who will visit Rhodes continuously until the next tourist season, as part of a winter tourism program implemented on the island by the agency in collaboration with an Austrian group and a tourist agency in Turkey, as the visitors will also take vacations in the neighboring country.

In essence, its implementation has already begun as, on October 2nd, the first German retired tourists came to our island for vacation. The agency will implement a program that will concern winter tourism and will include two rounds.

The first one covers the period from October to the middle of December, then there will be a break for the holidays and then the second round will begin which will start on February 5th and will last until June 15th.

Our winter tourists will be retirees from England, France, Germany in the first round and in the second round other markets such as Scandinavia and the Netherlands will be added. Their transportation will be done with the airline “Aegean”.

According to the available data, during the first round we will have about 10,000 tourists and in the second round at least another 20,000 retired tourists.