Previous Story
GNTO: Greek Winter Tourism Campaign Coming Up
Posted On 04 Oct 2021
Photo © Greek Travel Pages (GTP)
The Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) is getting ready to run a campaign to promote Greece’s winter tourism destinations.
Speaking to the Athens News Agency (ANA) on Saturday, the organization’s secretary general, Dimitris Fragakis, said the campaign will target both Greek and foreign travelers.
Alternative forms of tourism in Greece will be promoted through the campaign.
The secretary general said that while the GNTO is preparing Greece’s promotion for the 2022 season, it is still running a number of nonstop communication programs to world markets. The programs, said Fragakis, will run until the end of the year.
At the same time, the GNTO is preparing to take part in leading international tourism exhibitions, including the IFTM Top Resa in Paris and the WTM London in the UK.
For 2022, Fragakis informed that the GNTO will once again launch an “early campaign” that will run during the first three months of the year, which is the period when holidaymakers begin making bookings for holiday travel.
Archive photo of GNTO Secretary General Dimitris Fragakis speaking at the ceremony held for Greece’s opening to tourism this past May..
He added that the GNTO will formulate a new communication strategy for 2022 after evaluating data from this year’s tourism year, especially with regard to the markets from where Greece saw an increase in visitors such as Romania, Poland and France.
Greece’s campaign for 2021 had launched early in the year and focused on informing the world that Greece is a safe destination. It was addressed to a number of big markets.
Fragakis underlined that “from the first moment” of the start of the tourist season, the GNTO spread the message throughout the world that Greece is the first country to safely open in Europe for holidays.
The GNTO’s promotional strategy last year included co-advertising programs with tour operators and airlines amounting to 13.7 million euros.
I wish to see direct winter flights to Crete from England, that would be awesome and I think Greece in general can hold lots of traditional festivals and promote the food and music and stories and dance, sports tourism, hiking,harvest time all when the weather is ok to be physically active without dehydration or overheating. Whilst I love the summer months I can’t wait for winter flights.
Ferry schedules are difficult in winter, no daily connections to the islands (except Crete), hotels on the islands are closing quite early (around end of September/early October) and no direct flights from abroad to the islands. All these points make it difficult to push winter tourism on islands though they are worth of it.
Agree with previous comment – direct flights to islands is essential to boost winter tourism.
Geraldine makes a good point, but actually available info on what islands still have hotel availability and the Autumn/Winter ferry schedules would be great!
It would be usefull to expand the period of direct flights to the islands beyond the month of October and before April as more and more tourists like to travel to Greece outside the summer period.
Géraldine