Tourism

Tourism in Greece is expected to shrink for a second consecutive year in 2010, by as much as 15 percent, as strikes and violence sparked by plans to adopt austerity measures scares many visitors away. That is a problem for Greece as the tourism sector is the country's biggest source of foreign currency.

About 30,000 room reservations were cancelled in Athens in May alone after protesters set fire to a bank, killing three people, according to the country's hotel association POX.

Deutsche Welle talked to Greek Tourism Minister Georgios Nikitiadis about the country's debt crisis and the impact it has had on the tourism industry.

DW: Why should a tourist visit Greece, especially this year? Is there something special that Greece offers?

Nikitiadis: There are three or four very, very important reasons why a person should visit Greece: One is that Greece is one of the most beautiful countries in the world: nice beaches, nice sand. Everywhere you go in Greece you face beauty. The second reason: very, very few countries in the world offer a civilization like the one we offer. The third basic reason is that our prices have fallen by more that 20 percent, becoming more competitive than at any other time.

People are scared to travel to Greece after the violence especially with their families. Many people are afraid – because of the strikes for example - visiting Greece could turn into an odyssey.

That's far away from the reality, because Greece has no more strikes than other countries in Europe. Greek airlines and airlines operating in Greece do not go on strike more than any other country. And a couple of days ago we had an airline strike. Don't forget the word "philoxenia". It's a Greek word. It means "friend of the stranger, friend of somebody who comes from abroad". So I think there shouldn't be any concern at all. Greece is a very safe, a very secure place: at least just as secure as any other large European country.

A lot of Germans are scared to visit Greece because of worsening German-Greek relations.

We love the German people, as we always did. They are more than welcome. We never had anything against the German people whatsoever. I understand that there has been a lot of media coverage about German-Greek relations reported in a number of publications. But we know that the German people love us. There is nothing that can come between us."

Interview: Stamatis Assimenios
Editor: Kyle James