Category: In the news (Page 9 of 9)

Record year expected for Greece tourism, but local businesses say visitors seem reluctant to spend

July 13, 2013 / / 0 Comments
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This video news report by Ekathimerini English Edition, a daily newspaper published in Athens, examines this year’s surge in tourism to Greece.

 

June jump: Greece remains on target for a record year of tourism, with June arrivals to Athens International Airport up by nearly 15% over last year.

The Greece Ministry of Tourism expects a record 17 million tourists to visit the country this year, bringing the recession-ravaged country €11 billion in much-needed revenue.

But even though tourist-related businesses have noticed more visitor traffic this season, particularly in Athens, they haven’t seen a corresponding increase in the amount of money that tourists have been spending.

Click on the image above to view a brief Ekathimerini video news report on this year’s prospects for Greece tourism.

 

Aegean & Olympic Air introduce low fare calendars

June 26, 2013 / / 2 Comments
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Aegean Airways low fare calendar

Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air have both added low fare calendars to complement their online reservation systems

 

Look way ahead: Two Greek airlines have enhanced their online booking systems with new calendars that make it easy for travellers see the lowest available airfares for the next 11 months.

In their regular weekly email updates this week, Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air both announced their new low fare calendars, which provide at-a-glance information on the cheapest airfares being offered over the course of the following 11 months.

 

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SkyGreece to launch Athens flights in early 2014

June 25, 2013 / / 12 Comments
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SkyGreece Airlines S.A. Boeing 767-300ER

SkyGreece Airlines posted this photo of a Boeing 767-300ER on its Facebook page this week. SkyGreece says it will receive the recently-purchased 274-seat aircraft in Athens sometime in early August.

 

Slow startup: North Americans will have to wait until 2014 to travel on a new airline that is planning to offer direct flights to Athens from Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and New York.

Early last fall, SkyGreece Airlines S.A. launched a website and Facebook page with announcements that it would commence direct service to Athens from the four North American cities in “Summer 2013.” The sparse, single-page website featured the SkyGreece logo with the catch phrase “A Greek spirit in the air,” and promised “Legendary Greek hospitality from take-off to landing!”

That news was followed by a flurry of Facebook posts, in November, December, and January, announcing various appointments to the upstart airline’s executive management team. And on February 15, SkyGreece posted a photo shot inside a hangar at the Hellenic Aerospace Industry facility at Tanagra, Greece, saying that’s where the airline’s “heavy maintenance program will be executed.”

But then there was no further news — until this week.

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Greece getting good press as international media promote travel to Athens & the Greek Islands

June 6, 2013 / / 0 Comments
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Agriolivadi Bay on Patmos

Agriolivadi Bay on Patmos, part of the Dodecanese island group. Patmos is one of five  islands that the Globe & Mail says travellers “need to see.”

 

 

Good time to visit: During the past five years of economic turmoil, Greece has been subjected to extensive bad publicity in the world press, with a steady barrage of negative news stories focussing on strikes and riots and the massive social upheaval caused by high unemployment and painful austerity programs. It’s refreshing to see the tide changing, with major international media outlets now regularly publishing feature articles that recommend travelling to Greece instead of avoiding it.

One article in particular — Luring tourists back to Greece by Liz Alderman of The New York Times — has been republished in major newspapers in countries around the world. In that piece, published on May 23, Alderman notes that “travelers are returning in greater numbers this year, lured by discounts of up to 20 percent on hotels in major cities and on Greece’s stunning islands, as well as assurances — at least for now — that Greece won’t be ditching the euro and returning to the drachma after all.”

Writers at other high-profile newspapers have been filing their own reports explaining why the time is right to visit Greece, and recommending where travellers should go.

Here’s a roundup of several interesting travel reports I’ve discovered just in the past week alone:

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