- Hersonissos will hold two civil protection training sessions on November 20.
- Hotel owners, managers, and staff will be trained on emergency cooperation and evacuation procedures.
- The initiative is being carried out with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
- A new Pocket Guide will give participants practical emergency protocols and preparedness tools.
Hersonissos is taking an increasingly practical approach to tourist safety: put the hotels into the emergency-response network before something goes wrong.
The municipality is organising two specialised civil protection training sessions on Friday, November 20, in cooperation with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
One session is aimed at municipal employees and officials. The other is specifically designed for the people who run the destination’s hotels.
Hotels and the Municipality Need to Talk Before the Emergency
The second training session is titled “Cooperation, networking and creation of common communication channels between the Municipality of Hersonissos and hotels in emergency situations.”
It will bring together hotel owners, managers and employees to focus on practical cooperation during emergencies.
The agenda includes:
- two-way communication between hotels and municipal authorities
- evacuation management
- supporting visitors during emergencies
- coordinated responses between tourism businesses and public authorities
- establishing reliable communication channels before a crisis occurs
In other words, the idea is to avoid discovering during an emergency that nobody knows who is supposed to call whom.
Municipal Services Get Their Own Training
The first session is aimed at municipal officials and employees and focuses on established emergency plans and coordination between municipal services.
The objective is to improve preparedness for natural hazards and strengthen cooperation between municipal services, security forces and other organisations involved in emergency response.
That includes the less glamorous but crucial part of disaster preparedness: knowing the plan before the plan is needed.
A Pocket Guide for the People on the Ground
Participants will also receive a specially designed Civil Protection Pocket Guide, adapted to the needs of each participating group.
The guide will contain practical instructions, protocols and preparedness tools that can be used during emergencies.
The initiative is being implemented by a research team from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, headed by Efthymios Lekkas, professor and president of the Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization (OASP).
Building a “Resilient Destination”
The municipality describes the initiative as part of its effort to develop Hersonissos as a “Resilient Destination”, bringing public authorities and the tourism industry closer together when it comes to climate-related risks and other emergencies.
Tourism resilience is not just about rebuilding roads after a storm, reopening hotels after an emergency or getting flights operating again.
It is also about knowing how to protect the people who are already there.
For Hersonissos, that means residents, workers, and the visitors who may be thousands of kilometres from home when something happens.
