BY: LEN KAUFMAN
“The trend for us is slow tourism. That’s where it’s going. It’s going towards slow tourism because it gives you the chance to live like the locals experience, to be part of it. This is very big for us. Culinary is very big too because we have a very rich cuisine.”
–Andreas Fiorentinos, the new Secretary General of the Greek National Tourist Organization
At Seatrade 2025 in Miami, Florida, Travel Courier had the opportunity to sit down with Andreas Fiorentinos, the new Secretary General of the Greek National Tourist Organization, to find out more about the strength of the North American market, what’s new for 2025 and why Canadians should visit.
The popular European destination saw a record year with over 35 million people visiting Greece and spending over €21.5 billion in revenue in 2024. Looking ahead, Fiorentinos expects that the cruise industry will also bring in a lot of passengers for growth this year.
“Greece is evolving,” Fiorentinos explained. “The Mediterranean is a very peaceful place these days. So we are expecting a lot of traffic from the cruises. Between 2023 and 2024, we had a huge increase in passengers. In 2024, we had around seven and a half million guests from cruising. It’s even greater, even better than pre-covid, because geopolitically Greece is very safe. It’s the place to be at the moment. So we try to capitalize on that. Average stays are around three plus nights for the islands. And overall it’s around nine to 10 days for the state.”
Fiorentinos highlighted that Greece is investing heavily in infrastructure in lesser known destinations. For example, a new road between Petras and Pergo, which is the ancient Olympia side, to make the other destinations that we have available besides the emblematic destination.
“Forty-seven per cent of the visitors come to Greece for the sea and sun experience,” Fiorentinos shared. “The other 53 per cent, we are trying to create a product for them, and to rebrand the country. Countryside tourism, thermal spas, diving, hiking, whatever you can imagine.”
He went on to say that Greece wants to bring more of the farm-to-table experience to the tourists.
“They [the tourists] want to really go into the cultural thing. They want to live like the locals. So the trend for us, for me, basically, I think from what I hear, is slow tourism. That’s where it’s going. It’s going towards slow tourism because it gives you the chance to live like the locals experience, to be part of it. This is very big for us. Culinary is very big because we have a very rich cuisine.”
He pointed out that the destination is trying to achieve this “through the resilience and recovery fund, which is an EU fund. We are trying to rebrand the country, which means in that process, we are re-skilling and up-skilling people that are involved in tourism, so they can use the new technology. They can be more efficient. And then we have the Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Greek Hoteliers that work together with production, and cultivation. We’re trying to put people together, to make it happen. And it’s working.”
“Greece has 10,000 hotels and 80 per cent of them are family run and owned, small hotels. And then in the past few years, we’re trying to attract investments from foreign, bigger chains.”
As for ease of getting there, he shared that, “We have 14 airlines flying into Greece daily from different destinations. And this year, for the first time, we’ll have two flights from Los Angeles into Athens with Norse Atlantic.”
Meanwhile, he added that while it’s not the top source market, the Canadian market is important to the destination.
“Our No. 1 guests, in terms of numbers, in Greece are the Germans. The second are the British. The Germans are around five and a half million. The British are around four and a half million. The US is 1 million and a half. Canadians are this side of 500,000, so it’s important. And it’s important because the US and Canadian markets are bigger spenders than the rest of the Europeans.”
