Greece enlists “Santorini sunset” to launch tourism season 2020

With the majestic Santoriniri sunset and the iconic volcano on background Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis launched the opening of the tourism season amid the pandemic. The setting was perfect, the timing cleverly planned and the main message: we are a coronavirus “safe country.”

“Greece is ready to accept visitors safely, ensure that they stay safe and healthy” Mitsotakis said addressing some 50 foreign media correspondents whom he had invited to the island in the Aegean Sea on Saturday.

Greek tourism is back. We are opening up to visitors, but we are doing it with your safety as our utmost priority. And we have worked very hard to ensure our guests will be safe and stay healthy.

Today, my message to you is very simple. Come to Greece. pic.twitter.com/Phx5oFUL8y

— Prime Minister GR (@PrimeministerGR) June 13, 2020

“”Greek tourism is back. Today my message is simple, come to Greece, tell your friends, your readers, your listeners, your viewers that we are open and that they are welcome,” he stressed.

“I’m interested in making Greece the number one destination in Europe, but the safest destination in Europe,” the Prime Minister noted as the country partially opens its gates to foreign tourists on June 15 and fully on July 1.

Stressing the low spread of coronavirus in the country, Mitsotakis reassured that despite the fact that the testing will be random and not massive “we take our safety responsibilities very seriously.”

Responding to foreign correspondents questions, the Greek PM ruled out a new horizontal lockdown.

To a question on whether he can assure Greeks that even after Monday they will be able to feel safe, he avoided taking personal responsibility. He emphasized instead “This doesn’t depend on me but to all of us. We are focusing on the infrastructure of the hospitals and we will be strict in the rules that we have imposed.”

Referring to the health safety protocols and restrictive measures against the coronavirus, he underlined “we will be very strict when it comes to the basic parameters and guidelines that we put in place” for the tourism and hospitality sector.

Greece’s anxiety about the country’s “heavy industry,” the tourism, is big as the revenues make some 20% of the GDP

Noting that last year Greece welcomed 33 million tourists, but this year “we will have to work on a fraction of that number,” he stressed that “what matters is how comfortable people feel getting on a plane and flying to Greece or taking the car and driving to the the country.Greece.”

The Prime Minister underlined that “not everyone comes to Greece by airplane, so a lot will depend on our ability to project that Greece is a safe destination.”

The Greek summer is much more than the shimmering sea and the stunning sunset. It is a state of mind; a feeling of happiness, of freedom, of tranquility. These feelings are probably even more necessary now, as we are coming out of the first wave of the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/lh0y3gdKzG

— Prime Minister GR (@PrimeministerGR) June 13, 2020

Mitsotakis stressed that Greece is preparing for “a peculiar summer that is unlike to any other we have experienced, as the pandemic forced us to change our lifestyle, the way we work, how we greet each other, and even how we are finally trying to preserve our reputation as an emblematic holiday destination.”