PM Mitsotakis: Our top priority is an overall upgrade of Greece's tourism product

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday had a working meeting with the executive committee of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) to discuss the current tourism season. "I believe that we have already met one of our main targets, which is none other than the extension of the tourism period so that Greece is not a destination that our visitors prefer only during the summer months," he said.

He pointed out that the "revenues of the state budget that derive from tourism have also exceeded the initial targets set by the finance ministry. With the result that we have greater fiscal resilience to support society with a series of targeted measures to address the crisis of the imported hikes in prices".

The prime minister also referred to the government's two main priorities, saying the first has to do with the sustainability of the tourism product: "It concerns the protection of the environment, the protection of our destinations, especially some iconic destination that are now under great pressure and we have to start thinking immediately about their future, with interventions that can no longer be delayed."

The second, he added, had to do with those working in tourism and "with making it possible for all to have the same dividend of success" from the growth of the tourism product. "This has to do with better wages and better working conditions and, of course, with the shortages that are already being observed in terms of the workforce, something that forces us to plan interventions that will have a longterm impact," Mitsotakis added.

On his part, the president of SETE's board Yiannis Retsos underlined that by capitalising on the very good brand name that Greece has developed and which was further enhanced during the COVID-19 crisis and the way that Greek tourism opened 2020 and continued to operate in the summer of 2021, adopting a very correct strategy and becoming an example for other European countries, the tourism sector achieved "spectacular results".

Participants in the meeting included Labour and Social Security Minister Kostis Hatzidakis, Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias, State Minister Akis Skertsos, Deputy Finance Minister Apostolos Vesyropoulos and Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister Yiannis Bratakos.