Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-03-02

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Taxi owners strike on Tuesday, Wednesday

[02] Santorini launches campaign for new tourism season

[03] Geroulanos winds up visit to NY

[04] ASE opening: Rise

[01] Taxi owners strike on Tuesday, Wednesday

[02] Santorini launches campaign for new tourism season

The municipality of Thira participated in the International Tourism Exhibition of Milan (BIT 2010). Santorini was the only Greek municipality which participated with its own pavilion in the most important, for Santorini island, market internationally.

[03] Geroulanos winds up visit to NY

"In Europe," he said, "the media focus their criticism on Greece while in the US media, when they refer to our country, they present an overall picture of the economic crisis which prevails also in other European countries".

Geroulanos on the weekend visited the annual travel and tourism exhibition "New York Times 2010 Travel Show" organised by the newspaper "New York Times" where he had a series of meeting with the heads of several foreign delegations and other officials from the tourism sector, while he also gave many interviews to US and other countries' media covering the exhibition.

Speaking to reporters, Geroulanos stressed that "tourism, for our country particularly, is an important sector for development but unfortunately due to the current economic crisis we cannot earmark the amount of money required to project our tourism product nor are we able to anticipate at this time the prospects of the new tourism season".

He also reiterated that "we are going through a major crisis, but we are not hiding this, and we are trying to take advantage every prospect for proper and effective promotion of Greece, its natural beauty and its people".

The minister explained the government's political philosophy on issues referring to the preservation and promotion of the Greek culture as well as attracting tourists, and also made a special reference to Greek National Tourism Organisation's (GNTO) debts to several American and European media from unpaid advertisements, which he said make the task of promoting Greek tourism even more difficult.

Geroulanos said that, in his meetings, he briefed the tourism industry officials on the difficult economic situation, but also that "tourism is a priority that will be supported, with the emphasis on quality, enhancing alternative forms of tourism, and the proper projection of the picture of Greece".

The Greek minister continued that he was briefed in his meetings with tourist agents on the major problem that arose with the discontinuation of Olympic Airline's (the former national carrier, which was recently privatised) direct Athens-New York flights and the immense problem of finding seats on other flights, thus limiting the passengers' options.

Concluding, Geroulanos announced that he will accompany Prime Minister George Papandreou on his visit to Washington on March 9, and will have the opportunity to have a series of meetings with officials of the cultural and tourism sector in the US capital.

[04] ASE opening: Rise

Individual sector indices were moving mostly upward, with the biggest gains in Health, up 1.68 percent; and Oil, up 1.31 percent.

The biggest losses were in Financial Services, down 1.60 percent; and Personal & Household Goods, down 0.94 percent.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for blue chip and heavily traded stocks was up 0.26 percent, the FTSE/ASE MID 40 index was down 0.45 percent, and the FTSE/ASE-80 small cap index was up 0.03 percent.

Of the stocks moved, 45 were up, 40 were down, and 30 were unchanged.

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