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Key Tourism Figures 2016: Theodore Kontes, President Union of Cruise Ship Owners & Associated Members

Theodore KontesOfficial Tourism Message

Greece is the ideal destination for a cruising experience having 16,000 km of coastline as well as a Polynesian geographical arrangement. Worldwide guests show a great interest in the East Mediterranean — which includes destination Greece — as it is renowned for its important history and different cultures. However, it is also an area with several political negative matters that create an uneasy and risky environment which lead tour operators to reconsider the East Med for cruising trading.

Following are the main points that have lately affected the sector and need to be carefully monitored:

• Economic crisis in Greece and Europe. The crisis has affected the Europeans spending for vacation, who insist on short cruising and short stay in touring
• Immigrants traffic from Turkey to Greece also has a negative impact to the tourist planning and cruising for the East Aegean Islands.
• Various terrorist attacks that have occurred in European cities, airports, lead tourists to reconsider their planned vacations.
• The Brexit has negatively affected tourist vacations particular for UK customers due to the pound/Euro exchange rate, which increases the cost of holidays.
• Capital Controls in Greece has a negative impact for tour operators since they are considerably reducing their business in touring.
• Last, but not least, is the latest situation in Turkey that has left negative results on tourism and affected the entire East Med area in regards to cruising.

The years of 2013 and 2015 were great cruising years for Greece with some 4,300 port calls in Greek destinations and over 5.1 million guest arrivals. For this year, some 4,000 port calls and close to 5 million guest arrivals are expected. Meanwhile, we have noticed the negative impact on cruising for 2017, since several tour operators and cruise lines have cancelled trading in East Med. Already about 160 port calls to Greece have been cancelled.

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