At the 28th General Assembly of the Greek Tourism Federation last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and SETE President Yiannis Retsos discussed the establishment of a 10-year strategic tourism development plan. According to the news, the new model will be keenly focused on sustainability.
Mr. Retsos insisted on the need to form a national development plan that would lead Greece to become a more “mature” tourism destination, saying “Tourism entrepreneurship without environmental protection is impossible to exist…”
The SETE president went on to say a comprehensive sustainability program is a key to the formation of any successful plan for the future of Greek tourism. Retsos highlighted the need for not only protecting the environment but for social reciprocity, boosting local employment, maintaining, and promoting local culture.
Retsos shunned what he termed “short-sighted logic” in favor of long-range, big picture planning. Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis echoed Retsos’ contentions:
“This summer should be an epilogue to problems and a prelude to success for the future… Let’s take a deep breath so that the new 2020-2030 plan can correct problems of the past.”
Mitsotakis has consistently spoken on the need to change Greece’s tourism model, and to replace it with sustainability at the center of the tourism experience. According to the PM, Greece needs to stop measuring the success of its tourism seasons by the number of arrivals, to take aim at becoming a leader in terms of sustainable tourism. The Greek leader added this before the assembly:
“Let’s use the time we have so that the plan for the next decade in tourism, in 2021-2030, corrects many of the chronic problems that all of us have at times carefully swept under the rug, relying instead on some very encouraging short-term figures.”
Both Retsos and PM Mitsotakis hinted that the new seven-year budget (2021 – 2027) of the European Union and the Next Generation EU recovery package, might be best used to not only restart of the Greek economy but for the development of a new, long-term and efficient growth model for the country.
Partially sourced via GTP