PHILOXENIA 2022 – Athens-Macedonian News Agency event on tourist markets for Greece

Greece will seek to offset losses from the Russian tourism market as a result of the war in Ukraine by targeting the tourist markets of the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia and the Arab countries, as well as by diversifying its tourism product, speakers at an event organised by the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) at the Philoxenia 2022 exhibition in Thessaloniki said on Saturday.
The discussion on the topic “”The challenges of the new tourist season for Greece, against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the energy crisis affecting households and ‘players’ in the travel industry” brought together Deputy Tourism Minister Sofia Zacharaki and Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis, with the President and General Manager of the ANA, Emilios Perdikaris, in the role of coordinator.
The event was opened by the head of the ANA’s Macedonia Directorate, journalist Stavros Tzimas, who said the agency intends to organised similar events at sectoral exhibitions held at TIF-Helexpo.
The participants also noted that tourism enterprises will be supported with cash-flow problems created by imported inflationary pressures through programmes and aid, while a key problem during the current tourism season was a shortage of staff, where measures were being examined in collaboration with the labour ministry in order to match the needs of the tourism market with unemployed workers. They said emphasis was being given to training and further education programmes, with Thessaloniki at the centre of this effort, as well as referring to plans to create a Tourism Academy that will include an English department in order to attract foreign students.
Regarding the funds from the Recovery and Resilience Fund, Zacharaki said that 46 million euros will be spent on subsidised remote seminars focused on upskilling and reskilling people that already work in tourism, such has unemployed seasonal workers that want to improve their skills, while 320 million will be spent on improving infrastructure and accessibility, digitisation and human resources.

Satisfaction with 2022 results and concern over geopolitical stability

Zacharaki said that 2022 had proved to be an extremely successful year for Greek tourism, especially considering the impact of geopolitical, economic and post-pandemic uncertainties on tourism worldwide. The Russian invasion of Ukraine did not have the impact initially feared, she said, with bookings showing a recovery after March, and revenues were close to the record levels of 2019.
She reported “cautious optimism” regarding 2023, chiefly due to inflationary tendencies and the impact this will have on the finances of European households, while pointing to a “strong appetite and great enthusiasm for travel, which is also evident from the big tour operators, the airlines and some interesting studies by the UN World Tourism Organisation”.
Fragakis spoke of a good year following the lost years of the pandemic and the “worst crisis in the history of tourism”, with Greece recovering to match and possibly exceed the record levels of 2019 in revenues.
“If we gained anything from the crisis this was the unity, the cooperation of all agencies in the face of a common enemy,” he added, saying that the country’s presence at the WTM exhibition in London this year was a “milestone”.

The problems of 2022

According to Zacharaki, the biggest problem in 2022 was the great shortage of staff, which had started a few years earlier but was made much more severe in the post-Covid era, with people switching to other professions due to the perceived volatility of the tourism sector. “This is a big discussion that we are continuing to carry out institutionally as a government,” she said, pointing to the collaboration with the labour ministry in this area.
Fragakis agreed that staff shortages were the biggest problem but also highlighted the seasonality of tourism as a major structural issue that the government was trying to address through campaigns all year round, seeking to build Greece’s image as a year-round destination.
“It is a difficult wager, requiring time, consistency and specific things that need to be done,” Fragakis said.

Offsetting lost revenues from Russia

Zacharaki referred to the losses from the Russian tourism market, which was especially important for northern Greece, due to the war in Ukraine and the efforts made to offset this by reaching out to other major markets.
“We never talk of lost markets but we are pragmatists. When the warn is continuing and when a second and third market are affected we cannot mince our words…We cannot exclude any traveller who has preferred Greece. Macedonia, especially Halkidiki, has a very important share of the Russian market,” she said.
At the same time, she acknowledged that this challenge became an opportunity and businesses were able to help so that destinations were boosted by other countries. “At this time we are seeing a very dynamic presence from Romania. Average spend is increasing from Romania and other neighbouring or nearby countries. It makes us hopeful to see Britons, Germans…diversification is a key word and is the answer that the entrepreneurs themselves gave to the great challenge as regards the geopolitical part,” she added.
Fragakis also highlighted the importance of the Russian market for Greece, saying that 350,000-400,000 Russians had been expected prior to the war and these were lost and would probably not come in the following year, either, while he referred to the GNTO office in Russia, which was currently unable to operate.
He said the GNTO’s strategy will be determined by geopolitical developments: “We know that we have entered a period of crises, some markets will be affected by future crises. We have a very wide-ranging programme of expansion to new markets: the United States and Canada – we had started working on this in 2020 before the pandemic and the results became apparent this year, roughly 600,000 Americans came to Greece and direct flights are continuing. We are trying to open up the Latin American market, an excellent market for Greece, an opportunity for Greece because there are four countries with close ties to our country. We reopened the GNTO office in Madrid as a connection with Latin America, we have made deals with two airlines that bring people to Europe. A third, very important market are the Arab countries…another market is Australia, which was shut for two years, where there is a large part of the diaspora and this gives us the possibility to have an office. We will use it, we will open an office in Australia in 2023,” he said, noting that these goals could offset the losses from the Russian market.