ATHENS — "In Greece, our main concern was to ensure that, when tourism reopens, no jobs will be lost. I believe that we have managed to achieve this goal, through a series of targeted measures to support tourism," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday during his speech at the 66th meeting of the Committee of the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) for Europe.

The topic of the two-day meeting is to ensure the resumption of travel in a safe way. According to the prime minister, Greece has achieved this goal by introducing a series of innovations, adding that a discussion opened on Greece's initiative for the introduction of a digital Covid Certificate in January because "we expected we would have to take the necessary steps in advance to ensure that travel would continue normally in the summer."

The prime minister also referred to the measures to support the tourism sector and referred to the aid amounting to 420 million euros as working capital for tourism enterprises.

However, Mitsotakis expressed restrained optimism about the recovery of tourism and leisure travel in the short term, noting: "We should be aware that Covid has changed the priorities of travellers. I think experiences will carry more weight, especially special experiences."