GNTO to Bring Together Greek Regions and Israeli Tourism Players

Aiming to offer Greek tourism professionals the chance to get the most out of the upcoming IMTM 2020 trade show in Tel Aviv, the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) will hold an all-day B2B event with Israel’s top players in tourism and travel.

The IMTM (International Mediterranean Tourism Market) will take place during February 11-12 at the TLV Convention Center in Tel Aviv.

“Israel is a very important market for Greece for all year around tourism, which is what we are aiming for with our new campaign,” GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis told GTP Headlines.

In its 26th year, IMTM features exhibitors representing just about every aspect of Israel’s tourism market – incoming tourism, domestic tourism and outgoing tourism.

According to Fragakis, Israeli tourists tend to visit Greek destinations, such as Epirus and Attica, during the off season. Looking to support this, the GNTO decided to take things a little a little further and introduce all of Greece’s 13 regions to the Israeli market through a special B2B event under its organization.

The GNTO’s event will take place on the last day of the IMTM 2020 expo on February 12, in a specially designed space, and bring together representatives from Greece’s 13 regions, including tourism professionals, with Israel’s leading tour operators, travel agencies and airline companies.

“The goal is to bring them together for the whole day to do business… The regions will present what they have to offer for Israeli tourists and B2B meetings will take place between Israeli tourism professionals and each region’s tourism representatives and entrepreneurs… This is the first time the GNTO is organizing such as event and we expect it to be a great success,” Fragakis said.

The GNTO’s secretary general said that all regions responded with great interest and already some 200 Greek regional representatives and professionals have registered to take part in the event. Two regional governors will also participate in the event: Alexandros Kachrimanis of Epirus and Fanis Spanos of Central Greece.

On the Israeli side, Frangakis said some 70 tourism players have enrolled to participate and are interested in meeting Greece’s region.

“We value the way Greece appears in tourism exhibitions abroad and the idea is to organize such events in other trade shows as well,” he said.

The GNTO will participate in 47 international tourism exhibitions this year.

The B2B event at the IMTM 2020 expo is part of a wider plan of the GNTO to boost Greece’s presence when appearing in trade shows abroad.

Greece to revamp image at exhibitions, update website

“Our plans also include revamping Greece’s stand aesthetically and architecturally at all exhibitions… The idea is to modernize the stand and boost audience engagement with digital design,” he said, adding that a tender inviting architectural offices to redesign the Greek stand is expected to be launched in the coming months.

“We expect for Greece to have a whole new image in tourism exhibitions by 2021,” he told GTP Headlines.

The GNTO is also planning to redesign its official tourism website Visit Greece.

“The new site will be upgraded completely with renewed content and it will embrace technology and be mobile friendly,” Frangakis said.

Under a 60,000 euros budget, a new Visitgreece.gr website is expected to launch by this summer, following a tender that will be announced soon by the GNTO.