This year's ITB visit by the new Greek Deputy Minister of Tourism Elena Kountoura, who has been there since March 3rd 2015, needs to be crucial for her experience. Her meetings with Taleb Rifai (Secretary General of the UNWTO), her participation in the 5th Inter-Ministerial meeting on the 5th Silk Road Summit of UNWTO, have a more ceremonial character. So does her meeting with Michael Muller. To what should she pay more attention?
On March 4th 2015, in the unified Germany, the ITB expo opened its gates. Being the largest and most professional expo worldwide, it has entries from more than 180 countries this year as well.
That is almost as many as the UN Members. The writer, being a visitor to the ITB, for more than 35 years, when the wall of shame used to separate the East from West Germany, saw the value of the work with long-term perspective.
The Hangars of the expo cover an area of more than 160,000 m2. The services provided to professionals and the 10,200 exhibitors this year are exemplary. The amphitheater of the opening ceremony, which has about 4,000 seats and desks with automatic translation in 7 languages, the speakers’ stand, beyond which there is a banquet hall with capacity of 4,000 / 5,000 people, have been built 40 years ago and are being continuously improved.
Contact Chains by Hotels, spotless taxi service, great organization in the functional arrangement of the pavilions by Country and continent. Therefore, this year’s visit by the new Greek Deputy Minister of Tourism Elena Kountoura, who has been there since March 3rd 2015, needs to be crucial for her experience. Her meetings with Taleb Rifai (Secretary General of the UNWTO), her participation in the 5th Inter-Ministerial meeting on the 5th Silk Road Summit of UNWTO, have a more ceremonial character. So does her meeting with Michael Muller. To what should she pay more attention?
To having substantial meetings with the senior management of the big Tour Operators, mainly with those of TUI. She should seek to visit again, together with her highly qualified new advisors, which will have international experience in special negotiations with Tour Operators.
To claim a gradual change of course, larger quality shares of incoming Tourism to Hellas, a differentiation of the orientation of Tourists to new destinations, requiring development, new forms of Tourism, 12-month Tourism season with incentives for the Tourism Organizations.
At the same time she should visit all the pavilions of all (if possible) the participating Countries, in order to “seize images” of how the Countries with a long Tourism tradition draw the client- Tourist. She should also remain a bit at the Hellenic pavilion, which of course is structured in accordance with the beliefs of the previous Minister, who preserved introversion, despite declaring the opposite.
The Greek exhibitors, with a “conclave” mentality, recycle and exude the same climate in proselytizing international clientele for decades. That is why this climate is imperative to be put on a new basis, in all the international tourism exhibitions, in which Hellas will participate from now on. Alliances must be established, with mixed lobbies with multi-parameter coefficients from the Tourism sector, which will work together complementary.
As a small example, we mention a synergy of the aviation sector, parallel hotel services in Greece, Museums, restaurants, highlighting the advantages of Greek art, culture, healthy nutrition, etc.
Almost next to her, she will browse the Super-Pavilion of Turkey, and the tactics of our neighbor in the field of tourism. A pavilion of thousands of square meters, with infinite money flux for the configuration of successive targets in tourism. Let her ask the current advisers to observe carefully and with absorbency, a Tourism propaganda that pays off, even when advertising heterogeneous parts and cultures.
Let her reconstruct the Hellenic Tourism Organization immediately, with these experience that she will gain, with competent and likeable persons, in order for “EOT” to have substance.
He have been expressing these in International Conferences and in articles continuously, for many decades. But who has achieved this breakthrough during the last 30/40 years? No-one unfortunately.
Now is the time.
And let’s not highlight once more the aspects of Tourism Education, the restoration of the everyday services to the client-tourists, targeting the repeater Tourist, to quality and consumption. To the creation of new perspectives for fewer clients who will bring more currency.
We are neither Turkey, (that is, outside the EU, who subsidizes measurelessly) nor Spain with huge numbers of the same low-quality Tourists as ours. We want new markets, fewer customers, who will think, all year, with anticipation, when to go back, during the next season, to the cradle of the World, to their beloved Hellas. Our Country, which doesn’t view them as Euros or Dollars or Rubles or Yuans, but as friends who come back at their “summer home”.
Consequently, let the Minister to view herself, from that viewpoint, the future of the hellenic tourism product. For the future of this Country, for which we all struggle. Because for building a long term Tourism policy in a Country, one must absorb the experience of foreigners, in order to sell with real added value and benefit ones country truly.
Emmanuel A. Gyzis is Senior Management Firm’s Member at Emmanuel A. Gyzis & Associates LG.
Emmanuel A. Gyzis is managing partner of Emmanuel A. Gyzis & Associates Law Offices.
He was born in Athens, Greece, 13 January 1947; admitted to Athens Bar Association 1974. Education: University of Athens, Law School (1972), London, (L.LM. 1980), specialized in Aviation Law and originally worked in the respective field on behalf of British Tour Operators and Charter companies.
With longstanding journalistic and writing activity, his articles have been published in financial newspapers and magazines specialized in Aviation and Tourism. Author of pioneering monographs on the development issues of Olympic Airways (1989), he has published during a course of many years, a series of articles regarding its viability, its position in the international environment, as well as for other private airlines in general, while at the same time he participated in relevant International and Greek Conferences and Organizations. Successful and long-term engagement with issues regarding private airports / heliports, Low Cost Carriers (LCC), Aircraft Fractional Ownership, Ground handling matters. At his law firm “EMM. GYZIS AND ASSOCIATES”, together with a group of specialized associates he deals mainly with aviation law issues (cooperation with construction companies for commercial aircraft and leasing companies) and tourism law issues, specializing in mass tourism from/ to Greece and occasionally cooperating with Tour Operators. Since 1993, he has founded a number of Greek and foreign airline companies, on behalf of his clients, in accordance with the applicable legal status. He has participated in committees for the drafting of legislation regarding air transport, such as private airports, the Presidential Decree for private heliports and the Basic Legislation of the Aviation Code and he is the General Secretary of the Hellenic Aviation Society. For many years, he has been studying emerging markets, as a consultant for foreign companies, which plan to invest worldwide.
LANGUAGES: English.
MEMBER: Athens Bar Association, International Bar Association, European Society of International Law (ESIL), American Society of International Law (ASIL), British-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce, Greek-American Union, Hellenic Aviation Society.
PRACTICE AREAS: Aviation Law, Aerospace Law, Tourism and Transport Law, (European) Commercial and Company Law. Arbitration. Establishment and Operation of foreign companies in Greece. Project Finance. Free Movement of Capital. Privatization. Foreign/ Hotel Investments. Mergers and Acquisitions.
