Leisure

A total of 34 hotels have been certified as spa centres. 106 applications have been filed so far and the procedure continues, announced Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova.

Angelkova underlined that not all hotels may use the label SPA. The hotels have to fulfill all requirements of the regulation in order to do so.

Data released by the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) revealed the negative impact the refugee crisis in Greece and the terrorist attacks in Turkey had on the tourism industry in both countries. According to the details of the study, tourist arrivals, as well as the aggregate revenue generated were adversely affected over the past 7 months in 7 countries in the Mediterranean basin.

A number of important investments are under way in Greece's tourism sector, and this is of course very good news for the economy.

Prospects are strong indeed, and they have the potential of turning tourism into an engine to power the country to recovery.

A crossword puzzle with top-to-bottom and left-to-right Greek words has been unearthed on the in the walls of a basilica at the Smyrna agora, located in İzmir's İkiçeşmelik area.

Online booking of travel packages recorded a 75% increase in the nine months of 2016 compared with the same period last year, according to the latest figures of the Greek travel agency ‘Travel Plan.’ This is due to the fact that vacation packages provide very competitive rates and services compared to individual bookings.

In Turkey there are around 700 ancient Greek and Roman cities, which is more than the sum total in Greece, Italy, Tunisia and Morocco.

Cyprus recorded its best ever monthly revenues from tourism in July, scooping more than 400 million euros, official data showed on Friday.

"It is the best month for tourism income ever recorded by the statistical service," said an official statement.

Despite the recovery of the number of visitors to Greece from the Russian tourism market, this year's figures remain a far cry from the all-time records of 2013, with 1.35 million arrivals and revenues of 1.34 billion euros.

Greece will likely miss its target of increasing annual revenues from tourism this year, while rival destinations such as Spain are setting new records, giving their economies a major boost.

Greek tourism revenues failed to post a turnaround in July, bringing losses in the first seven months to to 345 million euros year-on-year, data compiled by the Bank of Greece showed on Tuesday.

Travel receipts in the period from January to July declined by 4.8 percent year-on-year, reaching 6.78 billion euros, while arrivals in the same period rose 1.1 percent from 2015.