With over 30 participants from Regions, Municipalities, Chambers, and Tourism businesses from various parts of the country, the presentation of the innovative training program for foreign tourism professionals on how to promote Greek destinations and businesses in the markets of interest took place yesterday. This is a holistic and fully targeted system that combines the guidance of travel sellers on the elements that can act as incentives for visitation, depending on the strategy that is being followed, as the case may be.
The organizers were the consulting group MTC GROUP and the collaborating company based in London MARTIKAS LTD. The methodology and content of the program, which will be implemented in collaboration with the global educational platform of the British company OTT, was undertaken by Mr. Niko Martikas, who then answered the questions of the participants.
The presentation was prefaced by the Director of the Greek National Tourist Board Office for the United Kingdom and Ireland, Mrs. Eleni Skarveli, who spoke in detail about the value of the contribution of the foreign travel professional in the sale of trips and the importance of, for this reason, his proper information and guidance.
The President of the MTC GROUP, Notis Martakis, who coordinated the discussion, in his introductory statement highlighted the necessity of a tourist destination and a business to send the right message, at the right time, to the targeted receiver, which is none other than the Tour Operator, the Travel Agent, the Travel Consultant and the Online Travel Agent (O.T.A.).
Because, as he said, this tourism professional can safely transmit to his client the message that the tourist destination or the business wants to send. Only in this way, he added, is the success of every promotion effort, every promotional action, every familiarization trip and every exhibition participation ensured, since through this specific program, the recipients will be the trained professionals themselves and not others who have no knowledge of the destination or the business. He also referred to the shift of the prospective traveler towards the tourism professional, which has already been observed recently, which was also pointed out by Mrs. Skarveli in her opening remarks and developed the reasons which, mainly, are:
Consumer Protection
Specialization in Security Issues
Fraud Prevention
Complex Travel Programs
Personalized Service
Crisis Management
For his part, Mr. Martikas emphasized that Greece is known, but not fully understood by travel professionals. He added that in the UK market, 55,000 tourism professionals do not know enough about the different experiences that Greece offers. He added that in total, around 150,000 travel professionals from all over the world are registered on the OTT platform.
Regarding the advantages of the program, he said that they are:
Promotion of new and lesser-known destinations.
Balanced flow of tourists to avoid overcrowding
Continuous communication with travel agents.
Collection of valuable data for targeted campaigns.
He then analyzed the content of the annual “package” which, among other things, includes:
Creation of a special Greek educational/information program.
Micro-learning in less than 20 minutes, with communication and marketing support with newsletters and other available means, even electronic mail.
Each region of Greece will have its own educational/information program tailored to its strategy.
Certification of travel professionals upon completion of courses.
Options for adding incentives: competitions, FAM trips, exclusive privileges.
Continuous re-evaluation and promotion through PR & Marketing.
Promotion through OTT social media and the group’s media (Travel Weekly).
Highlighting new and lesser-known destinations.
A balanced flow of tourists to avoid overcrowding.
Continuous communication with travel agents.
Collection of valuable data for targeted campaigns.
The presentation was attended by representatives from the Municipalities of Chios, Delphi, Larissa, Chania, Leros, Astypalaia, Rhodes, Kea, Karpathos, Agia, and Kos, from the Peloponnese Region and the Regional Unit of Messinia as well as the Region of Thessaly, from the Rethymno Hoteliers Association, the Chambers of Cyclades and Argolida and tourism businesses.
RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations, Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
