Key Tourism Figures 2017: Andreas Mandrinos, President Thessaloniki Hotels Association

Official Tourism Message

Thessaloniki is a popular tourist destination that constantly gains ground in the preferences of Greek and foreign visitors who perceive its comparative advantages. For Thessaloniki Hotels Association, our challenge and our personal “bet” is to succeed in combining quantity and quality and to upgrade the destination in such a degree so as to become appealing to tourists with greater financial standing.

Our renewed strategy is based on more extroversion, outreach and search of partnerships and smart new ideas and products, such as “thessbrunch”. This popular culinary concept has managed to draw the attention of the most of the public and the media and is the link of Greeks abroad with Thessaloniki, through the online contest that is running along with our project.

The intensification of marketing and the promotion of the wider region with the guidance of professionals is our next step. We aim at immediate and measurable results that will be translated into real tourist development of our destination.

The data record our dynamic course and we feel very proud for that since we mostly rely on our own strengths and we have been able to make a decisive contribution to the increase of visitors from all around the world. This year we continue in the same context and we target towards the largest international tourist exhibitions, we implement actions to promote the destination abroad and also, we co-organize events with public and private institutions of Greece.

We face the financial crisis that affects our country as an opportunity to highlight our positive points and for this we coordinate our actions in order to establish Thessaloniki on the map with the most attractive tourist destinations. Our potential, consisted of a good number of 84 hotels, offers quality services that satisfy even the most demanding customer and allows us to play a decisive role in the economic development of Thessaloniki.

We know deeply inside us that we will succeed because our destination is unique, it is full of surprises, it is a crossroad of people and cultures and it is described as “the gastronomic capital of Greece”. Thessaloniki is the second largest Greek city and has a magical way of offering wonderful moments to those who visit it, and turning every trip into an unforgettable experience.