Tourism Ministry

This week, possibly on Thursday, the Tourism Ministry will pass a legal clause through Parliament allowing tourism enterprises to compensate their clients - individuals and tour operators - who have already made down payments for bookings that cannot be followed through due to restrictions in hotel operation and travel, with the issue of an 18-month open-date voucher.

Marketing Greece, the nonprofit organization of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), is evolving into a central entity in the management of the unprecedented crisis in Greek tourism, particularly in the maintenance and strengthening of demand for traveling to Greece when the pandemic eventually subsides.

Greece's Tourism Ministry on Thursday announced the closure of the country's year-round hotels through end-April, in a decision that will be effective as of midnight, March 23.

The decision to close hotels that operate all 12 months of the year comes is another in a recent raft of strict containment measures to tackle the coronavirus epidemic.

A draft bill that was put up for public consultation on Monday features a raft of amendments to zoning laws aimed at facilitating major investment projects in the tourism sector.

Turkey has decided to exempt visa requirements for citizens from European Union countries Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland, as well Britain, for tourism up to 90 days as of March 2, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

Greece is turning into a focal point for global tourism professionals and investors, as World Tourism Organization Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili announced during a visit on Monday to Athens that the creation of a tourism academy in Greece and a global forum on investing in Greek tourism are under consideration.

The general secretary of the World Tourism Organisation Zurab Pololikashvili will pay an official visit to Greece on Monday.

Pololikashvili will hold a series of meetings with the leadership of the Tourism Ministry and with representatives of the tourism sector.

Following the years of Troy and Göbeklitepe in 2018 and 2019, respectively, the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry declared 2020 as the Year of Patara, the ancient city where St. Nicholas was born. Now, the ministry will promote the ancient city in the southern province of Antalya's Kaş District.

Athens International Airport is posting record figures ahead of the invitation for the submission of binding offers for 30 percent of its shares.

AIA - whose official title is Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos - registered a historic record of 25.57 million passengers in 2019 - 1.4 million passengers or 6 percent more than in 2018.

Turkey hopes to attract 58 million foreign tourists and targets more than $40 billion tourism revenues this year, Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has said.

He noted that the exact figures for the full year will be released at the end of the month, but the country probably welcomed 51 million tourists and generated around $34 billion of tourism revenues in 2019.