US’ Travel Weekly Stimulates Interest in Athens Among Americans

The revival of Athens as an exciting global travel destination is the subject of an in-depth destination and news feature on Greece published in influential US travel trade magazine Travel Weekly this month.

Photo credit: Region of Attica

Patricia Schultz, the acclaimed best-selling author of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die and a contributing editor to Travel Weekly’s Masters Series, wrote the six-page cover story after visiting Greece in September.

Travel Weekly is one of the leading publications for travel industry professionals in the US, distributed nationwide and online reaching 495,000 unique viewers per month.

“The news is good: The 2015 travel season for Greece has broken all records, and tourism, one of the country’s few successful industries and the lifeline to its economic recovery, stands to enjoy an equally healthy season in 2016,” Schultz begins her article.

She notes that Athens air arrivals increased by 25.6 percent in the first nine months of the year and that the country is on course to achieve a record 26 million arrivals and tourism receipts of 14.5 billion euros by the end of the year.

After dedicating several days to exploring Athens, she detailed the reasons why the Greek capital is ideally suited to US travellers of all ages.

The museum glass walls never lose sight of the rock & its monuments. Photo © Wikimedia Commons

“Over the past three years, Athens has experienced an unprecedented revival in popularity among travelers, among them significant numbers of Americans, who, up until recently, considered the Greek capital a stopover on the way to the islands”, she underlines.

Schultz highlighted the fact that September is an ideal month to visit the city, with temperatures remaining warm.

She touches on the classic Athens that a visitor must experience, such as the Acropolis Museum and the Archaeological Museum, while also emphasising the fresh new face of the city which new generation walking tour companies communicate through their unique insider experiences.

Plaka, Athens. Photo © Maria Theofanopoulou

Describing Greek cuisine as “one of the world’s most underrated”, she detailed her experience of a culinary walking tour “to experience the real deal along the little-visited backstreets of the atmospheric Plaka neighbourhood”.

Schultz went on to outline her experience of the destinations of Nafplion, Porto Heli and Patmos in the story.

“It was a memorable odyssey through a land of timeless history, beauty and filoxenia (hospitality), all enhanced by the Greek people I met along the way. They are masters at the art of carpe diem, living life to the fullest,” she concluded.

Schultz visited Greece on a press visit supported by Marketing Greece. Read the story here.