For years, Greece has been a favourite holiday destination with people across Europe and in particular people from the UK, Germany, France and Italy.

With the countries current economic climate and unrest, it is no surprise that the numbers of people flying to Greece for a holiday have been dwindling.

The Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) have stated that they believe that the tourism industry, the world’s third largest industry, is capable of pulling Greece out of the doldrums. Currently the tourism sector accounts for 18 per cent of Greece’s workforce and 16 per cent of the country’s GDP. SETE President, Andreas Andreadis has stated; “Greek tourism remains resilient to the recession and is perhaps the only sector that can contribute to growth”.

In support of this, SETE have produced a Greek Tourism 2020 Proposal for a New Development Model which specifies priorities and goals that will ensure tourism growth. This proposal calls for creation of an independent tourism industry, a tourism secretariat and a marketing company whose sole focus is promoting Greece. SETE have started as they mean to go on with high goals for 2012 – 16 million arrivals and €10bn profit.

SETE Director General, George Drakopoulos spoke in support of their goals: “Placing Greece in the world’s top ten tourist destinations by 2020 may be ambitious but it is not impossible”.

The proposal also outlines the aims to create one million jobs in the tourism industry and to retain and add value to Greece’s core products – sun, sea and sand.

Sadly the country has experienced a double digit dip in the number of people who are forward booking their holidays in Greece from countries like the UK and Germany. Importantly though, there has been an increase in tourism from people from different nations – 64 per cent more arrivals are coming from Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the Balkans.

These changes in the demographic of tourists travelling to Greece matter little, what does matter is the amount of money that they bring in to the country. Last year Greece displayed a 9.5 per cent increase in arrivals to their shores compared to the previous year. This means that buy-to-let property owners and businesses are finally experiencing increased demand. Should the proposals of SETE be taken on board and focus be placed upon boosting the tourism industry, it can only bring positive changes.

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