This month is probably the “first” most important month for the travel and tourism sector of Greece. For one, the 2010 season “officially” has ended and we all have drawn the line and came up with the bottom line. We will not comment on the results – its been done by government officials, association presidents, past-presidents, individual travel professionals, even by us as well.
The really important reason is that we have the exhibitions World Travel Market in London and Philoxenia in Thessaloniki.
In the good old days these exhibitions gave us an almost accurate picture on what to expect in the upcoming season. Now its a rough estimate which will take a lot of work to make reality or will give us the signal that something is not going well and we have to change things so it goes as we want.
This means that we have to have our antennas up and our critical mind working at tip top shape.
Talking about antennas and critical mind, we at Travelling issue a daily e-newsletter called Daily Travelling News (https://news.travelling.gr). It includes travel and tourism news items from Greece and abroad, cultural events, activities of all nature to come, and many many more areas of interest. They are not selected at random, just to fill up the news quota. They are items we think that our readers will benefit from, in one way or another. They are not to be read lightly – they go one step ahead and in some cases many steps. We do not pin point how our readers can either take advantage of the item or change the course of action.
A set of articles struck us wildly as a major opportunity. They were around the cruise industry.
The first article was “Four major cruise companies say goodbye to Florida and the Caribbean”. The day the specific article was published, it was read by 5000 people!
The second article was about the new cruise ship by Carnival called Magic which will commence its cruises at May 2011 with starting point from Galveston, Texas. What impressed us most from this article was that Galveston, Texas is spending 11 million dollas so that the new cruise ship will use the port as its start point.
The third article was the naming of Cunard’s cruise ship by Queen Elizabeth – giving her name to the cruise ship.
Finally the Seabourn Sojourn is going to cruise the world in 111 day staring from Los Angeles this upcoming January.
The cruise industry is among the tourism and travel sector that is booming and because of this, ports, cities, celebrities, officials and investors are supporting. Our question is – what are we doing to get a peice of the action. We once had it and lost it – is it time to claim it back – but what are we doing to get it – and what are we doing not get it.
Source: Hellenic Travelling
