The target of 19.4 million of tourist arrivals and 15 billion USD for Greek tourism until 2010, was set by SETE during its conference titled: “Tourism and Development: A Strategic Approach”. This means the Greece will increase its market share for Europe from 3% in 2000, to 3.68% in 2010, and respectively its share in the global market from 1.87% to 1.92%.
Due to the growing trend for short-term vacations and the disadvantage of our country’s distance in terms of both time and geographical distance from the main sources of tourists, the target for the average stay must remain at the current 10-day level.
According to SETE’s Chairman, Mr. S. Andreadis, these goals will be feasible only when our country proceeds directly with developing a series of support tourist infrastructures that will benefit the development of special forms of tourism.
In order to support the required increase of demand by 2010, 128,000 new hotel beds will be need, which will contribute towards upgrading the quality of Greek hospitality. The attraction of high quality tourists is expected to increase the per-capita expenditure from USD 737 in 2000, to USD 773 in 2010.
Our country’s lack of special tourist infrastructure, compared to its competitors, is the main reason for the strong seasonality of our tourism, which results in 51% of arrivals concentrating in the three months of July, August and September.
The improvement of the investment climate through the substantial modifications and simplification of the procedures of the Development Law, the attraction of foreign investments, the ongoing modernisation of all tourism enterprises, the intensity of promotion linked in fact to the Olympic Games, are the main axes of the strategy for achieving these targets, together of course with the focus on quality and a good value for money.
