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Anastasia Balezdrova 

The news that the second largest travel agency in Europe, Thomas Cook Group, is about to collapse has caused concern among Greek tourist companies. The reason lies in the fact that the Group brings more than one million tourists to the country each year. According to some commentators, the collapse of the consortium, which has subsidiaries throughout the world, will completely change the balance in Greek tourism.

GRReporter contacted the Director General of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises, George Drakopoulos, to comment on the news. According to him, the consequences of a potential future bankruptcy of the large British travel agency will be different for different companies.

"On the one hand, there are the amounts the travel agency owes to Greek tourist companies and these companies will not get that money back, unless some of them can rely on some kind of guarantees. In all cases, it will be difficult for them to get their money back, without being sure if and when it will happen. The game will then follow for the distribution of the "pie" given that the Thomas Cook agency sends about a million tourists a year to Greece. These people will continue to travel. Therefore, they will have to find another travel agency with which to travel. From this perspective, there will be changes in the market. But this is quite natural. Those who will lose money will be worrying."

A year ago, the failure of another British tour operator, Goldtrail, left about 16,000 British tourists stranded abroad. Could that happen now?
 
"Those tourists, customers of agencies holding the ATOL license, do not have to worry because the costs of returning to their country are covered. In all cases, this will be one irregularity in the system. It will be a bad development not only for tourists but also for hotels and all that offer tourist services," said Geroge Drakopoulos.

In his opinion, despite the severe economic crisis, 2011 was good for Greek tourism. Increase in revenue was reported but only from foreign tourist flow.

"In practice, we could say that the tourist year is over. Things went well. There was an increase in the number of tourist arrivals of about 10%. By happy coincidence, the increase in revenue was also about 10%. On the other hand, domestic tourism, i.e. the number of Greeks who traveled within the country was about 20% lower.

This means that companies and destinations working primarily with foreign guests had a successful year. The others that are visited mostly by local visitors were not so lucky. For some of them, the year was extremely difficult.

This is true for tourist companies in central Athens and Thessaloniki that became the victims of violence during the protests."

A week ago, the management of the iconic Macedonia Palace Hotel in Thessaloniki announced it would suspend operations due to the very high rent required by the owners of the building.

"I think the Hotel closure could have been avoided. Market conditions have changed many times and negatively from the time when the specific rent was set. I think that actions should have been taken much earlier, not now, at the last minute. I am convinced that the next owner of the hotel will pay a lower rent. I am not aware of what bureaucratic processes were needed and what restrictions exist, but the rent could have been changed to a level tolerable for the owning company. In this way, there would be no interruption of the workflow and not so many problems would be caused either to the employees, who will lose their jobs before the holidays, or to their families. I am sure that soon there will be a new tenant who will agree on a different rent. But in the meantime, this will cost a lot to many people, because it is one thing to close a hotel and then open it again and quite another to not stop working for a day. In my opinion, it is the bureaucracy of government services that is the cause of the additional costs and of the problems of so many people."

George Drakopoulos urged the government and all those involved in the public domain to support tourism, which is figuratively called "the heavy industry of Greece."

"For good or bad, tourism is probably the only activity in Greece, which may persist in this period of crisis. It may help the country make a step towards development. Our primary product remains exclusive, but the added value could be further improved. What should happen is that both the government and opposition parties have to understand that tourism is not just a romantic activity. It is an economic and social phenomenon, which creates jobs and brings revenue to the country. Therefore, all should support it in whatever way they can.

By this, I am referring to the government, which should prepare and enact a number of laws. There is an agreement from all sides for most of them, but nothing has been done so far. One example of such a law is the full liberalization of cruises, not different fictitious actions such as the removal of cabotage.

Other political parties need to realize that the occupation of ports, closure of airports and other such actions do not help the country in this difficult period."