ATHENS – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reaffirmed the Greek government’s support for the World Tourism Organization’s efforts in the field of sustainable tourism development, at his Monday meeting with the visiting chief of UNWTO Zurab Pololikashvili.

“Tourism is extremely important for the country as we have a very ambitious program to make sure our tourism product follows the trends of sustainable tourism development internationally,” stressed Mitsotakis, and underlined that Greece want to focus on the environmental sustainability of its seas, beyond the numbers of visiting tourists.

Pololikashvili said that “Greece is an important paradigm because after all the major difficulties you went through, you stayed united (…) and I am sure that future success will not only be about arrivals but also about revenue.”

Με τον Γ.Γ. του Παγκόσμιου Οργανισμού Τουρισμού (UNWTO), Zurab Pololikashvili συζητήσαμε το πρόγραμμά μας για τη Βιώσιμη Τουριστική Ανάπτυξη και την εμβάθυνση της συνεργασίας με την UNWTO Tourism Academy με σκοπό τη μεταρρύθμιση των Σχολών Τουρισμού. https://t.co/PIz59y7V1s pic.twitter.com/DKr2lJwcbS

— Prime Minister GR (@PrimeministerGR) February 17, 2020

It was also agreed to deepen cooperation with the UNWTO Tourism Academy in the context of establishing a UNWTO International Center in Athens, with the aim of upgrading the Ministry’s Tourism training schools to Regional Educational Excellence Centers.

Greece will organize master classes in collaboration with leading companies in the field of marketing, data management and conference tourism, and will host a tourism investment forum in 2021.

Both sides agreed to intensify cooperation on innovation start-ups, with the inclusion of the CapsuleT Travel & Hospitality Accelerator of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels in the UNWTO’s Innovation Hub network. The chamber’s accelerator platfom is a program to create and develop start-ups in the tourism sector.