| Competitiveness is a relative value resulting from our comparison with the best, or in other words, competitiveness is our ability to do business better than our competition. |
| The competitiveness of a country’s tourism depends on the competitiveness of the tourism clusters of this country. |
| A cluster is a geographical group of businesses and organisations that are connected through common interests and complement each other in the effort to formulate and offer the tourism experience. |
| In the immediate future, tourist destinations must adapt to a more competitive environment, where the sustainability and profitability of tourism businesses will be more complex and difficult than ever. |
| The over-supply of accommodations will continue to exist, mainly for political reasons. |
| Any characterisation of a country as Greece’s competitor in tourism, is not complete, if there is no clear reference of the tourism product and the geographical market it is competing in. |
| The main symptoms of decreased competitiveness in Greece are a decrease in the rate of international arrivals, the persistent seasonality of demand and the high concentration of supply. |
| The maintenance of the strong seasonality model, in combination with the limited capacities and poor quality of airports, put investment and development at risk of halting at tourist destinations. |
| Both the positioning and brand awareness of the majority of Greek tourist destinations are not very strong. |
| Greece cannot compete at the level of cost, but at the level of product differentiation and offer of enriched tourist experiences, a necessary condition of which is the existence of well-trained human resources. |
| The asymmetry between package prices and cost of basic goods at the tourist destination creates a negative gap of expectations. |
| The number of tourists interested in value for money is much greater than the number of price sensitive tourists. |
| Given the high and inflexible operating costs of tourism enterprises we must turn from cost reduction to cost control and the offer of services with a high added value. |
| The first step for improving competitiveness is to formulate a portfolio of products and then to search for our competitors for each one of them per target-market. |
| As regards the clusters, Greece must decide between quantity and quality of tourists and its strategic directions in the current and new markets with existing and new products. |
| The new markets are not necessarily geographical but they can also be product-based. |
| Our competitors are different per market and per product. |
| For each product of the Greek tourism portfolio we need a separate marketing plan. |
| Research must precede advertising in order to improve its effectiveness. |
| Advertising is considered effective above a certain minimum level of investment. The greater the fragmentation of the advertising budget, the less effective advertising per target-market becomes. |
| A necessary condition for improving the competitiveness of Greek tourism is for the Government to reposition tourism and respectively adjust governmental action.
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