Conference tourism is Greece’s “rough diamond”, with demand constantly increasing and Thessaloniki showing a relative upward trend. However, due to the deficiencies in infrastructure, potential revenues of half a billion euros are lost on an annual basis.
The president of HAPCO & DES (Hellenic Association of Professional Congress Organizers & Destination and Events Specialists), Sissi Lygnou, underlined in her statements on the sidelines of the 13th annual two-day conference which took place in Thessaloniki, that professional and conference tourism can significantly contribute to the national economy and development. More specifically, it can attract high-income visitors and it can play an important role in the transmission of knowledge and scientific results, while also helping sustainable development. “We are here to show that Greece is the jewel of conferences and events tourism, but it has not been exploited as it should be. It is important to focus a part of the national tourism strategy on the promotion of the country as a destination for conferences and events so that we can climb very high in the international ranking. It is something we deserve, and we have not been able to achieve it so far,” he said.
Greece occupies the 10th place in the relevant international ranking, she said and added: “Through our own estimates and the very high demand recorded, I can say that the country loses more than half a billion euros from conferences and events that cannot be hosted due to lack of infrastructure, lack of availability or possibly improper pricing policy.”
Ori Lahav, Kenes Group’s CEO – one of the main speakers of the conference – also estimated that there are huge development prospects for Greece in the field of conference tourism.
