Athens.- ANA-MPA

Tourism Minister Harry Theoharis held a series of meetings with state officials and tourism industry executives in the context of his visit to Spain for the FITUR International Tourism Trade Fair, held in Madrid on May 19-23.

As part of a campaign to promote Greek tourism, Theoharis met with World Tourism Organization Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili, and Albanian Tourism Minister Blendi Klosi.

He also met with Croatian Deputy Minister for Tourism Tonci Glavina, and with Gabriel Escarrer Jaume, president of the Alliance for Excellency in Tourism (EXCELTUR), a Spanish non-profit group formed by the chairmen of 33 leading Spanish tourist groups.

Summarizing his meetings, Theoharis noted that “it is particularly gratifying that only a few days after the opening of Greek tourism on May 15, the message of safety and security has come across to the international community.”

With solid health safety protocols and procedures in place, he added, “we are seeing the first positive feedback by the number of bookings from tourism markets that are of interest to Greece.”

“We will continue this effort,” he underlined, “as we owe it to all the workers in the Greek tourism industry.”

On Thursday, Tourism Μinister Theoharis visited France as part of his tour of countries of increased interest for Greek tourism. The minister had meetings with his French counterpart and with the representatives of airlines and the largest tour operators in France. Also, during his stay in Paris, he gave a series of interviews to French and international media.

As he recently stated at the Delphi Economic Forum, “the French market is particularly keen on the resumption of tourism to Greece and ranks first in terms of bookings.”

Theoharis had a working lunch with senior executives of Air France on Friday, Theoharis, followed by a meeting with the Product Manager of tour operator Thalasso No1- Ôvoyage Sami Guenaoui.

The tourism minister also gave interviews to French media, such as the newspaper Le Figaro, the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP), the Europress Union, Tourmag, L’Echo Touristique, the financial magazine Challenges, Le Quotidien du Tourisme and others.

Lufthansa adds seven

 new Greek destinations

The German air carrier Lufthansa added seven new Greek destinations during the summer of 2021. Greece is one of the large growing markets of the German airline for this summer.

According to a company announcement, Lufthansa’s schedule of flights to Greece is more than doubling with the addition of seven brand new destinations.

As of May 21, Aktio, Chania, Corfu, Kavala, Kos, Mykonos and Zakynthos will welcome the arrival of the German air carrier in their airports for the first time .”This summer all the companies of Lufthansa Group will offer flights to Greece, with 470 routes from 17 destinations,” the announcement said.

International passenger

traffic at Greek airports          

increased in April

April showed an upward trend in international passenger traffic at Greek airports, compared to April 2020.

According to the passenger traffic statistics released by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the upward trend in arrivals is starting to show an upward trend compared with the corresponding month last year, as Greece started accepting travelers from some countries without a quarantine, provided that they have completed their vaccinatation or display a negative test.

In terms of passenger arrivals from abroad, this year Greece received 101,521 passengers, while in April 2020 only 5,484 passengers had arrived, an increase of 1,751.2 percent. The total number of flights (domestic and international) amounted to 12,569, also recording an increase of 126.1 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2020, when 5,559 flights had landed.

In terms of the overall statistics for the first four months of 2021, from all airports, a drop of 69.4 percent is recorded, reflecting the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.