ATHENS — The tourism ministry will accelerate the government's strategic programme this year, Tourism Minister Haris Theocharis said in an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA).

The "tourist world" should expect initiatives related to the acceleration of infrastructure projects and the quality upgrade of the national tourism product, he said and added: "We will create the institutional conditions for Greek tourism to invest in quality and not only in the quantity of tourists."

"We are cultivating interest in special forms, such as the highly lucrative wellness and healing tourism or gastronomic tourism," he said.

Theocharis described it as a real feat that the tourism sector in Greece operated and earned revenues estimated at 4 billion euros in 2020. "We survived and became a point of reference in the midst of the pandemic. Despite the measurable benefits, the operating tourism economy of 2020 is the big capital of Greece for tomorrow", he stated.