Greece ended 2018 with a new historical record for tourism, as 33 million international tourists made their way through the country and revenues in the sector exceeded 16 billion euros, Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura said on Tuesday in an interview with Alpha TV.
The minister stressed the enormous contribution of tourism as a whole to the Greek economy, which includes all the productive sectors, such as trade, construction, and real estate.
She referred to the strategy of the Tourism Ministry and the next moves to continue the excellent course of Greek tourism in 2019, as well as to maintain the double-digit increase already recorded in the foreign markets.
The year 2019 will be a demanding and difficult year, the minister said, referring to a series of challenges. Brexit is expected to bring turmoil across the European economy, as are the successive elections in Europe, the problems faced by low-cost airlines that affect flight planning, as well as greater competition from non-EU countries that adopted aggressive "subsidisation" policies in tourism and had advertising budgets that were many times that of Greece.
Kountoura stressed that she will have meetings with British and European tourism industry operators in order to minimise the impact of any problems and to ensure the flow of tourists to Greece continued to increase.
