In a recent visit to Paris, Greek Minister of Tourism Charis Theoharis held discussions with French representatives of Europe’s top tour operators. Based on the latest data from bookings and the direct interest of the market, they expressed to the Minister the belief that tourist traffic in Greece will show a big increase this year. Over the past two weeks demand has been steadily recovering, bringing Greece to the forefront of preferences for the French public.

As the general manager of the tour operator Hèliades, Jean Brazon, pointedly said: “The decisive element for the increased demand was the timely and detailed announcement of the reopening of Greek tourism on 14th May.”

This view was confirmed by the product manager of the tour operator Karavel-Fram, Nadez Kanou, who added that, “at the moment, bookings for Greece far exceed those of competing destinations.”

Senior executives of the airline Transavia informed the Minister that Greece is currently first in bookings and all indications are that it will be the best selling destination for Transavia this year, exceeding the demand for Spain and Portugal.

As a result, Transavia has increased the anticipated number of passengers to Greece for 2021, reaching 1,100,000 seats.

The French-Dutch company, belonging to the Air France-KLM group, connects four French cities with 12 destinations in Greece, while the new flights Paris – Preveza, Nantes – Corfu and Montpellier – Santorini have been added to its list of itineraries this summer.

“I am optimistic that we will have a dynamic stream of tourists coming from France this year, as our country has managed to maintain its “brand” as a safe destination, while offering all those ‘special’ elements that the French tourism market is looking for,” said Mr. Theoharis after his meeting with French counterpart Jean-Baptiste Lemoin, Deputy Minister of European Affairs, who is responsible for issues concerning the tourism of France.

This article was first published in Greek at kathimerini.gr.