Greece-Cyprus Travel Agents Join Forces to Reignite Tourism After Covid-19

Greece and Cyprus travel agents announced this week that they had teamed up to assess the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak on their tourism sectors and to draw up a common strategy that will enable the sector to restart.

Travel agent federations in the two countries – including the  Federation of Hellenic Associations of Tourist & Travel Agencies (fedHATTA), the Hellenic Association of Travel & Tourist Agencies (HATTA) and the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA) – will work together to implement a series of joint actions which will preserve the reputation of the two destinations while ensuring that guidelines are set to enable safe travel and protect host countries.

The announcement comes after a number of countries said they were considering entering unilateral agreements that will allow travel to partner countries under certain conditions and with respect to national and international health guidelines.

The first and key priority according to the federations is re-instating air transport between Greece and Cyprus. Both countries are among the few in the world with very low coronavirus infection and death rates.

The federations said they will base their action plan on a similar agreement carried out by EMTTAAS (East Mediterranean Travel & Tourist Agents Associations Synergies), where tripartite deals between Greece, Cyprus and Israel or with Egypt are in place providing for joint travel package deals in order to stimulate tourism to the Eastern Mediterranean region.

In this direction, both sides agreed to boost demand by introducing joint traveler distribution programs with a focus on social tourism. The recommendations will be presented to tourism ministers in both countries.