Kathimerini article on ports/ferries

by **Jan** » 14 Mar 2007, 14:43

An interesting article (in English). Symi Visitors (and residents) will enjoy this:

�We are not perfect and there are problems,� he [Michalis Sakellis, president of the union of coastal shipping enterprises] said. �For the 2008 schedule, we plan to publish travel schedules as early as this coming October to give sufficient time to plan in advance.�

Jan

by **Anthony** » 14 Mar 2007, 23:16

I'll believe it when I see it! :?:

by **Ozzie Geoff** » 15 Mar 2007, 07:32

Interesting article, Jan. One figure I would query is the supposed 14 million visitors/tourists in 2006. Thats a bit hard to compute, the entire population of Greece is about 11 million, to have 3million more tourists than locals. :?:

The majority would arrive by air and would likely to be consentrated in the months May to September, thats about 3 million a month...allowing for 2 mio in the "off season 7 months". Thats nearly 800,000 people a week, I doubt if even Heathrow could cope with that and bear in mind they are not in transit, they are there for approx 2/3 weeks.
Imagine if all these people decided to have a few days in Athens before their jaunt to the islands. Planes to the islands.[8
Anybody have any thoughts?

by **MacDuff** » 16 Mar 2007, 02:09

Yeah Ozzie Geoff :D Heathrow handles five and a half million a month BUT I don't suppose they are ALL Greek ;) All the tourism people world wide use a series of multiplying factors :twisted: From these they extrapolate gross benefits to the community which usually result in each retail business wondering why it isn't receiving it's share. The Greek tourism folks won't be any different - Georgios probably has estimated sales of a couple of million Euro :geek: They wish! I once read a tourism consultants report that 145,000 people attended an event (in Saskatchewan). I subsequently read the annual financial report for that event. By dividing total gate receipts by the entry charge, I found that the number of attendees was 44,000 and some. :D But the event received some government funding based on the consultants report :o Hopes this helps clarify your thoughts :geek:

by **Kon** » 19 Mar 2007, 00:50

Read a similar article in todays greek paper (Neos Kosmos)that it was 14 million tourists that visited last year which was 8% more than 2005,they also say they expect 15million this year.Greece is expecting its 3rd consecutive year of tourist growth since the 2004 Olympic games.

by **MacDuff** » 20 Mar 2007, 04:14

Yes, the figures just HAVE to go up each year, but just a little bit at a time.

The fate of Ministers, bureaucrats and consultants may depend upon that increase - or maybe I'm just a cynic 8-)