What the new season in Greece has in store

8\/4\/0<\/em><\/p>\n

– In recent years, the Greek government and private sector representatives related to the tourism industry have been constantly improving the quality of services. For example, since last year Greece<\/a> introduced a special sign for restaurants offering truly Greek cuisine.<\/p>\n

The spring-summer season and the following 4 years will be different from all previous ones because Greece and Greeks around the world are preparing for the first Olympic Games of the 21st century, the 2004 Olympics. On the eve of this event, Athens is opening the most powerful airport in Europe named after Eleftherios Venizelos, high-speed highways are being prepared for opening, and the final stage of construction of the Athens metro is successfully progressing – a unique museum where at the stations passengers will be presented with archaeological finds instead of advertising panels.<\/p>\n

As for my forecasts, allow me to note: tourism is the most fragile of all industries, and the slightest political-economic instability can have fatal consequences. But, based on the experience of my telephone conversations and personal meetings that I constantly conduct in the cities of Russia and the near abroad, as well as on the fact that, according to the consulate, in just January-February the number of tourists visiting Greece increased by 65%, I must be an optimist.<\/p>\n

But actually, I have always been distrustful of statistics. In my opinion, if we are talking about numbers, we should first of all talk about revenues. After all, there have been cases when one tourist, renting a de-luxe class villa on Crete for several months, spent more than a whole charter of tourists living in campsites.<\/p>\n

But that is not the most important thing either. Even more important, in my opinion, is the 'human factor'. We should not turn away from visitors with small budgets, from pilgrimage and children's tourism. A child's social circle is five times larger than ours – school, yard, stadium, etc. Having visited the Acropolis, he will tell about what he saw to a huge number of people – and thereby contribute to the development of cultural and tourist ties.<\/p>\n

_<\/strong><\/p>