Greece hopes that the tourist season in the country will be saved by Europeans arriving this summer
Greece, which has been less affected by the coronavirus pandemic than its European partners, hopes to use this result to attract tourists to the country. As reported by RFI citing AFP, Tourism Minister Haris Theocharis is grandly presenting an advertising campaign for the summer tourist season under the slogan "We are open and waiting for you."
Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said that the authorities have taken all necessary measures to ensure sanitary safety during this tourist season, which will be "seriously different" from previous ones.
As Le Monde notes, in 2019 Greece received 33 million tourists and earned 18 billion euros from this. The tourism sector accounts for more than 20% of the country's GDP. This year, Haris Theocharis expects that the country will earn a maximum of eight billion euros from tourism.
"We will win the economic battle just as we won the sanitary one," said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. According to Johns Hopkins University, 180 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic in Greece, and 2,952 cases of COVID-19 have been detected.
The tourist season officially opens in Greece on June 15. A few days ago, Greek authorities published a list of 29 countries whose citizens can come to vacation in Greece. Initially, the list did not include the European countries most affected by the pandemic – France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom. However, the day before, the Ministry of Tourism changed its position and expanded the list to include all these countries.