The year 2018 ended with a new historical record for Greek tourism, with 33 million international arrivals and revenues of more than 16 billion euros, Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura said on Tuesday in an interview with Alpha TV, ANA reports.
The minister underlined the enormous contribution of tourism as a whole to the Greek economy, which affected all the productive sectors, such as trade, construction and real estate.
She referred to the strategy of the Tourism Ministry and the next moves to continue the outstanding course of Greek tourism in 2019, as well as to maintain the double-digit increase already recorded in the foreign markets.
The year 2019 will be a demanding and difficult year, the minister argued, referring to a series of challenges. Brexit is expected to bring turmoil across the European economy, as are the successive elections in Europe, the problems faced by low-cost airlines that affect flight planning, as well as greater competition from non-EU countries that adopted aggressive “subsidisation” policies in tourism and had advertising budgets that were many times that of Greece.
Kountoura stressed that she will have meetings with British and European tourism industry operators in order to minimise the impact of any problems and to ensure the flow of tourists to Greece continued to rise.
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
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