On the sidelines of the conference, the Secretary General of the Hellenic National Tourism Organization, A. Fiorentinos, had a meeting with the CEO of ETC, E. Santander, the Minister of Tourism of Bulgaria, M. Borshosh, and the President of ETC, M. Sanz, in the presence of the Greek Commissioner, A. Tzitzikostas.
The special conference Destination Europe Summit 2025, which took place yesterday (Thursday 6/2) in Brussels, on the subject of the future of Europe as a tourist destination and the challenges of the sector, was attended by the Secretary General of the Hellenic National Tourism Organization, Andreas Fiorentinos.

The Destination Europe Summit is organized by the European Travel Commission (ETC), Booking.com, and Euronews and is an annual forum for exchanging views and expertise on tourism policies in Europe and the roadmap for promoting the continent as a tourist destination, with the participation of Tourism Ministers, heads of National Tourism Organizations, as well as representatives of giants of the global tourism market and service providers (Booking.com, Mastercard, etc.).

The event was also attended by the Greek Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism in the European Commission, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, who shared the key points of his vision for tourism in Europe, noting that although it is the second smallest continent in size, it is the first in terms of visits worldwide.

Mr. Tzitzikostas made particular reference to the opportunities emerging from the emerging markets of the Middle East and Asia, as well as the need to manage tourism flows with the best possible tourism experience, diversification, safety, and sustainability in mind. He also announced the development of a new single European strategy for sustainable tourism that will respond to the challenges of climate change, balanced geographical development, digital tools for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the unified promotion of Europe as a sustainable tourism destination.

The President of ETC, Miguel Sanz, highlighted the need to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness as a single tourism destination and stressed that the effective promotion of the European brand and the digitalization of travel services are very high on the planning agenda for the coming years.

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Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC-BY-SA Copyright: Michael W. Pendergrass  pixabay.com

For his part, Mr. Fiorentinos presented Greece’s strategy as a major force in the global tourism environment and exchanged views on the challenges of tourism with the participating speakers and the Greek Commissioner, while in particular with Mr. Tzitzikostas they agreed on closer cooperation between the two sides on issues concerning Greek tourism.

Meetings with tourism stakeholders

Furthermore, on the sidelines of the Destination Europe Summit, the Secretary General of the Greek National Tourism Organization met with the Minister of Tourism of Bulgaria, Miroslav Borshosh, the Global Head of Public Affairs of Booking.com, Peter Lochbihler, and the CEO of ETC, Eduardo Santander, with whom he discussed issues of good practices from Greece for the improvement of the tourism product.

Finally, in an interview with the international news network Euronews, he referred to the ongoing tourism infrastructure projects in Greece financed by the Recovery and Resilience Fund, as well as the emblematic project “GNOT Digital Transformation”, which will upgrade the travel experience by constituting the first complete one-stop shop for planning and organizing the trip for visitors to our country.

Also present at the conference was the Head of the GNOT Service in France, Emmy Anagnostopoulou.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations, Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report