Cretan hoteliers met with Governor Arnaoutakis, reviewed the season, and pressed for improvements at airports, VOAK, ports, and the water supply.
The new board of the Cretan Hoteliers Association, led by President Manolis Stamatakis, visited Governor Stavros Arnaoutakis to do what hoteliers have done for years: call last season “positive,” hand over a checklist of infrastructure wishes, and exchange polite thanks.
Their memo — the industry’s perennial greatest hits — requested improvements on functioning airports, the national and provincial road network, full completion of the long-troubled VOAK, stronger ports, solutions to water shortages, better health services, and assorted financial gripes. The memo is familiar because it reads like it was printed from an archive of every hospitality meeting in the last decade.
Governor Arnaoutakis thanked the association for its work and for “safeguarding jobs and workers’ rights” — a fine line to walk when seasonal labour and service stress are part of the island’s reality. Stamatakis returned the gratitude, praising the Region’s “steady support.”
For anyone watching, the ritual was pure theatre: the hospitality sector declares success, then politely demands better infrastructure; the region promises cooperation; everyone leaves reassured that the phrase “we will work together” is well and truly on the record.