Interview: Continued growth of Greece's tourism expected despite refugee and economic crisis

Greece's tourism industry, a key pillar to the country's growth, continues to offer a light of hope to the cash-strapped national economy, despite the current challenges, according to officials and experts in Athens.

"Greece will host a new record of visitors for 2016, reaching 25 million of arrivals plus 2.5 million arrivals from the cruise business," President of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), Andreas Andreadis told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Should that number be achieved, direct revenues will rise up to 15 billion euros(16.73 billion U.S. dollars) compared to 14.2 billion in 2015, adding one percent to Greece's GDP and another 15,000 jobs, according to Andreadis.

For Greek Minister of Tourism, Elena Kountoura, the new strategy implemented in 2015 would bear more fruits in the following years.

"We designed and implemented our new policy which was to extent the season, to introduce to the markets wonderful places, to develop thematic tourism and at the same time to open up to new markets like China and South Korea," said Kountoura.

"We have managed to grow tourism by 42 percent from 2010 to 2015, at a time when the Greek GDP went down 25 percent," Andreadis stressed.

"I don't see a reason why this should not continue, unless it is overtaxed to such an extent that it will lose its competitiveness," he added.

The Greek islands remain among the most popular destinations for tourists not only from Europe, but the United Stated and Asia as well. The combination of high quality services and excellent prices make Greece a wonderful destination, Kountoura stressed.

For Andreadis, the optimistic scenario for 2016's turnover can be achieved, if a number of crucial challenges are taken into account and addressed successfully. He referred to the refugee crisis and the over taxation of the tourism industry.

After the Balkan route to central Europe officially shut down in February, more than 53,000 people have been stranded in Greece. As the flow of refugees from Turkey in the last two months was very low, Andreadis dismissed fears that the ongoing crisis would have a major impact on the arrivals.

But, he stressed that Greek government needs to reverse the negative image that the media have created.

"People who don't know details about Greece think that the entire country is full of refugees. I have to note that we talk only about 50,000 people," he said.

"Germany has almost one million refugees already there, while Turkey has two and a half million. 50,000 is not a big number but the image is creating negative publicity about Greece," Andreadis explained.

Another key issue that the Greek government needs to address according to the Greek Tourism Confederation is the tax increases.

Tourism businesses have absorbed all the increases in taxation in recent years, but any extra burden seems unbearable.

"We have explained that we cannot afford any additional taxation. We are in discussion with the government to avoid over taxing a product that it is the only hope of Greece to get back on the road to recovery," Andreadis underlined. Enditem