Greeks Incentives for Tourists
The tourists are now no longer need to worry about the extra cost when traveling to Greece. Therefore, the Greek government promised to pay back the cost of off-budget, if issued tourists stranded in the ‘land of the gods’ was due to happen some event such as demonstrations or natural disaster.
This policy represents the Greek government’s efforts to restore the damaged image of the country due to the strike and protests related to trimming spending by government policy. The strike was still continuing despite the decreasing levels of violence. Besides rocked by protests, the Greek tourism sector is also suffering from the volcanic eruption in Iceland who threw dust into the sky and disrupting flights.
“We will pay the extra cost of hotel rooms and all of which must be spent by foreign tourists who had washed up here, such as flight disruption caused by volcanic eruptions,” said Minister of Culture and Tourism, Pavlos Geroulanos.
Geroulanos say, the Greek tourism sector began to improve although exact figures cannot be ascertained. Essential for the Greek tourism sector, accounted for 20 percent of state revenues. “Several major tourist destinations affected by the crisis, but other destinations okay,” he continued.
Geroulanos also launched a new internet site to advertise on Greek tourism and attract tourists. Greek government imposed the state expenditure reduction program as a condition of receiving bailout worth 110 billion Euros from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The objective is to reduce the state deficit to less than 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2014. Today the Greek deficit amounted to 13.6 percent.
