PM Mitsotakis and UNWTO chief Pololikashvili discuss sustainable tourism

"Tourism is extremely important for the country as we have a very ambitious program to make sure our tourism product follows the trends of sustainable tourism development internationally," stressed Mitsotakis, and underlined that Greece want to focus on the environmental sustainability of its seas, beyond the numbers of visiting tourists. 

Pololikashvili said that "Greece is an important paradigm because after all the major difficulties you went through, you stayed united (...) and I am sure that future success will not only be about arrivals but also about revenue."

It was also agreed to deepen cooperation with the UNWTO Tourism Academy in the context of establishing a UNWTO International Center in Athens, with the aim of upgrading the Ministry's Tourism training schools to Regional Educational Excellence Centers.  

Greece will organize master classes in collaboration with leading companies in the field of marketing, data management and conference tourism, and will host a tourism investment forum in 2021. 

Both sides agreed to intensify cooperation on innovation start-ups, with the inclusion of the CapsuleT Travel & Hospitality Accelerator of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels in the UNWTO's Innovation Hub network. The chamber's accelerator platfom is a program to create and develop start-ups in the tourism sector.