Greece plans to extend the tourist season beyond October to November and, under certain conditions, to the rest of the winter months in order to lure northern European to the country.
Greece is experiencing one of the best tourism seasons of all time. Numbers have surpassed pre-pandemic levels and are on track to attract more than 33 million visitors. The government hopes to further improve this by extending the tourist season.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the initiative at the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair last week.
“In order to extend the tourism season into the winter we will approve additional support,” Mitsotakis said, adding that funds will be allocated so that Greece can be promoted by the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) through joint advertising with airlines and tour operators until March 2023.
Highlighting the “highly successful summer tourist season“, the PM said that the government intends to provide additional incentives to extend the tourist season through domestic tourism and announced that the “Tourism for All” program that offers subsidized vacations to Greeks would be expanded to cover another 200,000 new beneficiaries.
Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias was in Germany and Austria this week, and he plans to visit Sweden and France next week to promote winter vacations in Greece.
Initiative for winter tourist season in Greece
Recently, Kikilias announced that the northern pensioners would have an easier time coping with the winter in Greece while facing smaller financial burdens.
According to him, unlike other countries, Greece has a mild winter, thus, pensioners will not need to spend a lot of energy.
In addition, many other pensioners from Europe will also have the opportunity to save money, considering that the cost of living in Greece is much lower. At the same time, they will also be able to enjoy the beauties of Greece.
Kikilias said the aim is to maintain all scheduled existing flights from Northern and Central Europe to Greece – which are already increased compared to the same period in 2019 – and to further increase them also during the winter months, especially for the period November-March.
The initiative includes the financing of a wide-ranging co-promotion program for travel to Greece during the winter and is being developed in cooperation with Athens International Airport and Fraport-Greece, which are groups that are adding their own incentive programs for airlines to the effort.
Along with this massive promotion of Greek destinations, and in particular Crete, Rhodes, Kos, Athens and Thessaloniki, the Ministry of Tourism is also ensuring the availability of a minimum number of hotel beds in the above island destinations.
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