Tourist chiefs condemn Daily Mail article

The Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) and the UK Federation of Tour Operators (FTO) have criticised a report in the Daily Mail that suggested that drunks have “made Greece a no-go”.

Yesterday’s edition of the newspaper quoted the Federation’s director general Andrew Cooper as stating that 2004 bookings to Greece were down 19%, with a 25% drop in bookings for Rhodes, which, as reported, has been hit by bad publicity over events in the resort of Faliraki.

But Mr Cooper, who has this week been in Greece for talks with local tourism authorities and Greek police, told News From Abroad that there had been no journalists at the meeting and that he had not given the Mail the figures.

And Panos Argyros, director of the GNTO, told News From Abroad: “The most recent bookings figures for Greece (AC Neilsen’s UK cumulative outbound figures until the end of August) do indeed show a decline of 29%, but there has been a 25% drop in bookings to ALL outbound destinations for 2004.”

He continued: “Some destinations are down much more than that, for example, Cyprus is down 31% and the Canaries are down 44%. I cannot imagine where the Mail got their figures from but they are pretty meaningless. There does appear to be downward trend in bookings but it is across the board and Greece’s figures certainly cannot be attributed to what has gone on in Faliraki this summer.”

The GNTO has since written to the Mail demanding an explanation. Meanwhile, Andrew Cooper, of the FTO, added that this week’s meeting in Greece had been very useful and that all parties were committed to working together to “repair Rhodes’ damaged reputation”.

The Daily Mail declined to comment on the story when approached by News From Abroad.