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Anastasia Balezdrova

Athens's mayor announced the establishment of a municipal committee for tourism in Athens with the participation of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Athens area and all related professional organisations. "The fact that 60% of tourism, 50% of the beds in the whole area are located within the municipality of Athens and one in every two congresses is held in the capital is satisfying, but it also shows us the importance of our role and responsibility."
 
Speaking before representatives of the tourism business George Kaminis admitted that the problems with crime and the presence of thousands of illegal immigrants in the city centre are factors that hinder the revitalisation of the tourism image of Athens. In this regard, he said that the municipal council in cooperation with the competent authorities has decided the municipal police to participate in joint patrols with the regular police officers in order to provide a permanent presence in areas where there is increased crime, whether it is related to illegal trade, drugs, theft or robbery. Another measure is the intensifying of street lighting, the organisation of cultural events and the presence of residents and companies in the historic centre and in areas where there are problems with crime. Thirdly, George Kaminis pointed out the recovery of old buildings abandoned for years in cooperation with the state but with private initiative too. The idea is to attract new residents and businessmen in "a very beautiful, but now deserted area of ​​our city."

The representative of New Democracy Olga Kefaloyani stressed the need for security and targeting specific forms of tourism. According to the new head of the General Secretariat for Tourism Konstantina Bei, the "absolute priority" should be the establishment of Athens as a "city break" destination.

The action plan for tourism development and the presentation of Athens for the period 2011-2012 includes actions such as joint work of all bodies and institutions throughout the area, not just downtown, intensifying the activity of the Congresses Bureauf, extending the informational network for visitors by placing two new Info-points offices on the corner of Amaliyas Avenue and Dionisiou Areopagituu Street and at the port of Piraeus for the convenience of tourists from cruise ships.

The Athens municipality intends to develop commercial activities by offering official tourist goods "Breathtaking Athens", to attract as many "friends" from around the world using social media, to organise trips for journalists from abroad, to participate in tourism fairs and create new promotional materials.

"The program is running already. The two new info-points will begin operating in June. The Congresses Bureau is also running and in a month it will hold its first event ACB aimed at exchanging experience and contacts between the people engaged in congress tourism. In the same vein, we organise at the end of September a training event entitled Digital Applications in Tourism," told GRReporter the CEO of the company for tourism and economic development of Athens Alexis Galinos.
 
The campaign "This is my Athens" will include residents of Athens, who will show the visitors "their Athens." "These people will work on a voluntary basis and will show the tourists what they would like to see, for example, the nightlife or neighbourhoods where immigrants live or anything that relates to the specific social characteristics. The idea is to find people who have these specific preferences and Athenians to show them in their city.

According to Alexis Galinos, the tourist flow to Greece has increased due to unrest in the countries of North Africa and therefore "we hurry to organise and to welcome visitors as during the Olympics. There will be dozens of volunteers in Athens in June who will welcome and guide the tourists, and we hope that we will create a positive first impression in tourists in this way that they will bring to their countries in order to increase the visitors in the next season."
 
The chairmen of the Union of Hotelkeepers Yiannis Retsos said in turn that the organisation supports the municipal company for tourism and stressed the importance of a continued good work. "In Greece we have often seen how good initiatives are interrupted when municipal or state authorities change. Fortunately, the mayor acknowledged the importance of the good initiative of the previous municipal government and decided to reorganise and strengthen it."

To our question about the drop in bookings, Yannis Retsos replied that traditional holiday destinations will "have a lot of work and even increase in the number of tourists. Those places that depend on visits by Greeks would have difficulties." According to him, "Athens itself is a separate category and has been the subject of negative publicity in the last two years because of the events that happened last year especially. The problem of crime is real and we can not say that it does not exist. Therefore, it is necessary to restore the reputation of Athens. I believe that this plan would work in this direction."

Union of Hoteliers, in turn, is also taking initiatives and collaborations for the presentation of Athens and Attica.

The municipal company for tourist development plans also to establish Athens Film Office to attract local and foreign film productions, to develop the Trade Travel program for presenting Athens before tourist agencies, to make a City Pass card for the public transport and the tourist sites in the city, to establish a mechanism for crisis management and international cooperation in tourism.