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Anastasia Balezdrova

The municipality of Thessaloniki is preparing measures to stimulate the shopping tourism as stated by Mayor Yiannis Boutaris for GRReporter. He criticized the ministry's decision under which the regional governments are entitled to decide on how many Sundays a year shops in each region should open. According to Yiannis Boutaris, each municipality should take this decision alone.

"By decision of our regional government, the shops in Thessaloniki will open 10 Sundays a year. We suggest that this number should increase in compliance with the holidays in neighbouring countries in order for the people from Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia and other countries who can arrive in Thessaloniki literally within 2-3 hours to come and shop freely. Our idea is to see when there are holidays in these countries and to introduce the necessary changes in the opening hours of shops during the specific weekends. The employees will be compensated with a day off on Monday or on another weekday."

According to Boutaris, the shopping tourism in Thessaloniki is developing well and it would be appropriate to take actions for its expansion.

"The other issue is how the tourists can visit the city. Currently the only possible option is by car or bus. For example, four buses from Skopje arrive every day and all are full. The municipality is discussing with OSE railways the possibility of restoring the rail connection with Sofia, then with Skopje and Belgrade and, finally, with Istanbul, to facilitate the passengers. We are unable to determine when it will serve these routes but we can push for their establishment."

Yiannis Boutaris said that several low cost airlines like RyanAir, Easy Jet, Air Berlinse, Astra and others are interested in flying to and from Thessaloniki Airport. So far, there have been air connections with various Russian cities, including 38 flights a week.