Tour operator

Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni is visiting New York, prioritizing the US market as part of efforts to enhance traditional inbound tourism destinations in line with the ministry's action plan for 2024.

The aim of her visit is to solidify Greece as a top-choice tourism destination for US travelers, aiming to boost revenues by enhancing the country's tourism image and identity.

Cyprus' Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios has concluded a first visit to Washington and New York with a view to gathering information and promoting Cyprus as a tourism destination with a "positive impression" he told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA).

Greek hoteliers have signed contracts with major foreign tour operators with price hikes between 10% and 15% for the 2023 season.

Travel companies protest in front of the Presidency. This was announced by the association "Future for Tourism". They demand the resignation of the Minister of Tourism - Stella Baltova.

The reason is that about BGN 16 million have not been paid yet - state aid, which should compensate the losses of the companies in tourism from the pandemic.

Tour operators and travel agencies are planning a protest in front of the Presidency in connection with the granting of the latest aid to the industry. Pavlina Ilieva, chairwoman of the Future for Tourism Association, explained that the Ministry of Tourism has changed the rules and is delaying the opening of the application measure, DarikNews writes.

Britons eager to travel amid promising vaccination efforts against the coronavirus are expected to visit one of their favorite destinations - Turkey. 

"Last year, Turkey's tourism sector saw a fall in tourist demand from the EU, but the UK remained out of this picture," Firuz Bağlıkaya, the head of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB), said Monday.

Greece is going to battle it out with Spain and Portugal to attract the biggest possible share of tourists from major markets this summer, especially Germany, as the big German tour operators have started aggressively promoting packages to Greece and the Balearics - the islands that have done better at combating Covid-19 than continental Spain.

Hundreds of thousands of holiday bookings in Greece for July, August and the following months remain active in the systems of the major German tour operators as well as of airlines and hotels, as they have not been canceled despite the pandemic.

Cancellations of bookings at Greek hotels for the months after April are coming thick and fast, while major tour operators such as Tui are citing "force majeure" for its suspension of payments and the list of cruise operators and airlines canceling their plans is growing.

In connection with the announcement of the bankruptcy of the Thomas Cook tour operator subsidiaries, the Ministry of Tourism has created an expert group for emergency work and a 24-hour hotline. This was announced at an extraordinary press conference by the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova, quoted by the BNR.