- By Nikolas Kelaiditis, Expert group member in Directorate General Move – Tourism Team
Global tourism changes and together with it change the habits of travelers. The year is no longer only summer, more and more choose spring and autumn for milder temperatures, better prices and calmer experiences. Slow travel gains ground, fewer movements and more essence, participation in local activities with positive footprint.
Destinations seek smart ways to distribute the flow inside the day and in time in order to protect the quality of life of residents and the experience of the visitor. The journey connects digitally from the booking until the entrance into a monument and the payment in the restaurant, while health and climate adaptation go up to the first line, shade, water, signage, night experiences, information in many languages. Markets of high expenditure open dynamically, especially from Asia, and short-term rentals enter into a clearer framework of rules. Inside this landscape, Greece can not only follow but precede.
The key is to give reason of visit in every month and in every place. This means mapping thematic experiences, culture and gastronomy in autumn, hikes and mountain routes in spring, city breaks all year, thermal and wellness in winter. In the points with pressure, islands very popular and historical centers, we apply simple and fair tools, electronic appointments in monuments, limits in very large groups, mild daily fee for day visitors with reciprocal works in cleanliness, water and shading. Movements become milder with packages without car that combine airplane, train, ship, island hopping that includes less known islands and many-day cultural and wine routes. The digital experience is simplified, confirmation of flight, transfer, self check in, entrance into archaeological sites and reservations in restaurants connect into one flow, while in airports solutions of quick identification are tested for smaller queues. The adaptation to hotter weather becomes advantage, more shades and water stations, shading devices in queues, extended night hours in museums and cultural spaces, smart notifications for thermal stress. On the front of markets, we cultivate collaborations with airlines for better connections from Asia and co-produce campaigns city plus islands. In short-term rentals we apply clear rules, single registry, zones per neighborhood, transparency of data, fair taxation.
The travel agencies have key role and enter into the center. They are the orchestrators of the experience, design, package, advise and solve problems before they appear. They can lead the extension of the season with mid-season packages that tie culture, gastronomy and countryside, to integrate proposed hours of visit and smart flows into itineraries, to distribute groups into less loaded zones of the city, to offer alternatives when the congestion index goes up. Through contracts with hotels and transports they keep competitive prices outside peak, give incentives for longer stay and bring visitors with higher per capita expenditure in the suitable periods. In sustainability, they pass green criteria in the selection of suppliers, offer options without car and integrate actions with positive footprint, local experiences, small producers, walking routes with certified guides. As official distributors of tickets and experiences they support systems of reservations in monuments, direct the demand to hours of low peak and function as reliable conduits of information for rules, schedules and weather conditions. In matters of quality, they adopt and promote a simple Charter of Quality and Respect for groups, group size, noise, use of public space, responsible visits in residential neighborhoods. In crises, weather phenomena, strikes, cancellations, they offer the most valuable, management of changes, safety, rerouting, support on site.
To pass from today to tomorrow with realism, stable financing with targeting and simple rules is proposed. We create Fund of Resilience of Destinations which is supplied from small percentage of stay fee and day visits and returns into works that the citizen sees, shade, water, cleanliness, paths, accessibility. The works are prioritized every year with analysis of cost and benefit for the destination. For infrastructures of small cost but great value, such as shades, drinking water stations, cool materials in public spaces and shading equipment in queues, we proceed with simple contracts of performance with the private sector, where the contractor pre-finances the solutions and is repaid gradually from savings or from predetermined part of revenues. At the same time we set up a hub of tourism data per region with anonymized occupancies, flows of arrivals, heat intensity, water and waste consumption and complaints of residents, with open APIs so that the travel agencies create smart itineraries in real time. In points of high pressure limits of capacity are defined beforehand, how many, when, how, with maximum per hour, group size and obligatory reservation in peaks, and annual re-examination with transparency in the results. Accessibility becomes market strategy, mapping accessible routes, certifications of accommodations and museums, training of staff.
For the uncertainty of the era three realistic scenarios are formed with common way of measurement. Base scenario, smooth demand and stable air transports, focus on extension of season, full implementation of reservations in congestion points, night experiences and packages without car in at least six regions. Scenario of thermal pressure, fifteen to twenty days of heatwave above thirty-eight degrees, summer protocol is activated, shift of schedules into afternoon and night, free drinking water in popular points, dynamic notifications in applications and travel agencies and clauses of flexibility in contracts without cancellation fees for change of visit time. Scenario of disturbance of transports or geopolitics, temporary reduction of flights or bookings, turn to proximity markets and train and ship packages, city break campaigns with islands outside peak and rebookings through travel agencies with price guarantee and immediate service, while resources are drawn from the Fund of Resilience for temporary support of small providers of experiences. In all scenarios the same basic indicators of performance are measured, percentage of arrivals outside July and August, average expenditure per visitor, average duration of stay, waiting times in popular points, index of satisfaction of residents, water consumption and waste per thousand visitors and share of packages without car in total.
The timeline is simple and applicable. In three to six months the Fund of Resilience and the data hub are founded, minimum rules of capacity are legislated in five to seven points pilot and to the travel agencies access is given to live data of congestion with incentives when they direct flows to hours and neighborhoods of low pressure. In six to twelve months the pilots expand into another ten destinations, the contracts of performance with the private sector for shade and water in the hottest areas start and officially is launched category of experiences without car with guaranteed responses. In twelve to twenty-four months the transition passes from pilots into normality, reservations in peaks where needed, full transparency in revenues and expenditures of the Fund with public board of works and establishment of the Council of Destination Management with regular accountability. In this way the investments go where it hurts, the visitor lives better, the resident breathes and the sector becomes more resilient and more profitable thanks to the organization and to the cooperation of all.
