I think three years in the crisis have mutated me into a notorious grumbler and misery-maker. I don’t see the progress Greece is recording. I don’t share the optimism bumped and hammered on my head by the government, almost on a daily basis. Greece is moving forward and I stay behind soaked in my whiny mood. Can you imagine? Even my daily horoscope advised me today “to get more self-critical”.
I will try to change. I’ll put all possible effort to look forward and not back. And especially, I will try hard do not take any look at the present. The future is right before me 🙂
Therefore I post below the much promising plans of premier Antonis Samaras to boost the tourism and bless everyone with jobs, wealth and growth.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras sent out a message of optimism on Wednesday evening while addressing the general assembly of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE).
“Our wager is to perform miracles and we can win it only if we all try together. We can win, and we shall win,” Samaras said according to Athens news Agency, AMNA.
Terming tourism “a support” for building the country΄s future “in difficult conditions of crisis”, the prime minister said that tourism and shipping were the “champions of our economy” which will “apparently give the economy an important victory.”
“Arrivals in Greece this year will surpass all previous numbers and will reach a record level. The income from tourism seems to be at record levels as well. This will be a victory for the tourism sector in which hundreds of thousands are employed, yielding income that is being distributed in all society. Tourism achievements will be a victory and a hope that we can exit from the tunnel. Moreover, it is an indication of a series of structural changes and reforms that improve the competitiveness of Greek products and a proof of a change in mentality,” Samaras noted.
The prime minister said also that the state cannot be an obstacle to entrepreneurship and it has to eliminate bureaucracy. “Our goal is to make Greece an important tourist destination. In order to return to a before-the-crisis GDP level, we must have a 25-30 percent increase. One third of this percentage can result from tourism alone.”
Hurrah!!!
Also Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni revealed a multifaceted plan on how to turn Greece into the country every tourist from the most remote place in the world will want to visit before die.
Speaking at the same SETE-event Kefalogianni set the key-points of the tourism’s new strategy:
“Proper management, careful steps and targeted policies. Upgrading the quality of the tourism product. Transition to a diversified, multi-disciplinary and ultimately cost-effective, tourism.”
This strategy will help tourism to get a new quality and as the tourism sector brings “jobs creation, wealth and healthy growth,” as Samaras stressed.
Double price tags?
Of course, one of the main targets of PM Samaras is to bring down the Value Added Tax in catering businesses from 23% to 13%. However this has to be approved by the countries lenders, the Troika.
Daily Imerisia noted that Samaras government considers that hotel/bar/restaurants-owners should write double prices: before and after the V.A.T. decrease!!!
Officially, the purpose of this absurd and utmost bureaucratic measure is to have consumers informed about the new prices.
Unofficially, the measure is to have consumers stun and apploud the government, I suppose lol
PS To be honest, I do not quite understand how exactly they will boost tourism, but what do I know? I’m not in the tourism business.
Moreover, a real mean friend of mine noted that such “speeches reminded her of school essays written by high school students after reading a how- to-write-a-good-essay manual.” What does she know? She may have studied French literature, but she is out of the labor market. She is jobless.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Greece a major tourist destination until these boys and girls came along and started “fixing” things, thus creating the new order in Greece and elsewhere, you know, the “New Greece” of mass unemployment, mass emigration, rampant poverty and disappearing USB-sticks?
it were the protesters in Athens that pushed tourists to stay away. even though they were flying straight to the islands. and the strikes, although that was in 2010 and 2011. But before the economic crisis, it was the high prices and the relative bad service that sent tourists to Turkey.
do not try to find any logic in this country.
What they need to do I lengthen the tourist season the weather here is better than Northern Europe in the winter, and many people would come if they coud get direct flights but they all stop at the end of October. Who stops them well the the holiday companies and their Monopolies.
They are saying they are stopping unemployment benefit this winter how will people live. when they have no chance of work in the tourism industry because everything is closed down because the visitors cannot get to the greek islands.