Yesterday’s meeting of the regional council of Western Greece developed into a field of political confrontation with harsh characteristics, with the head of the “Together we change – Western Greece” faction, Kostas Karpeta, coming into conflict several times with the regional governor Nektarios Farmakis and officials of the regional authority for a series of issues he had posed in the form of questions.
The occasion was the performance of the Region of Western Greece in the tourism sector. As Mr. Karpetas pointed out, the figures are revealing and at the same time disappointing, as a drop is recorded in all indicators (overnight stays, visits, visitor stays, receipts) of tourist traffic in Western Greece for 2023, while in other regions tourism recovers.
Mr. Karpetas stated that “we continue to say big words instead of learning and changing course. We are at the bottom of tourism,” he said, accusing the regional authority of going in the wrong direction at a time when other regions are recovering.
In strict tones was the answer given by the regional governor Nektarios Farmakis: “I don’t think anyone is happy with the performance of the region in tourism in recent years. But you know what no one wants to happen to even their enemy? To point the finger at him who reads the numbers as he wants and who for his choices was condemned in the conscience of the professionals of the region”.
Mr. Farmakis responded to Kostas Karpetas, saying that he is having a contest of wit and wit, instead of seeing the essence of the policies of the Region, which for the first time implemented an integrated policy for tourism and opened up to new markets to replace the losses that caused by a series of crises and geopolitical upheavals.
The regional governor also attributed part of the responsibility to entrepreneurship, saying that what is missing is not the infrastructure, but the beds. “It is finally time for the private sector to invest here. Don’t just get rich and invest the surplus value elsewhere. There is also patriotic entrepreneurship, which we should see at some point, as we see it elsewhere,” said Mr. Farmakis, referring to the example of Zagorochoria.
He added that the Region for the first time has a brand name and marketing and is not “Far West” (s.b. a paraphrase of the “Go West” of the Katsifara period) and emphasized that tourism is a vulnerable product that needs time to take root .
“We have an opportunity in front of us. Everyone must understand that Western Greece today is “value for money”, friendly to investments that are not made overnight. They want years to reap. To those who do not want to listen, we cannot tell them anything else. We tell the citizens that the road is long, but it has solid foundations,” said Mr. Farmakis.
Earlier, the new Deputy Regional Governor for Tourism and Culture Panagiotis Sakellaropoulos, using the words of the Deputy Minister of Tourism Elena Rapti, said that the Region of Western Greece has finally come out of obscurity. It is visible on the tourist map, taking important steps towards a sustainable tourism development, while he questioned the data of the Bank of Greece, presented by Kostas Karpetas. “What sampling did these figures come from, what businesses did they ask?” asked Mr. Sakellaropoulos, who spoke of myths that distort the image of development and opportunities recognized by the government and by tourism entrepreneurs, adding that the Region’s strategic plan aims at quality and not mass tourism.
However, he did not fail to recognize that there were three main factors that affected tourism in Western Greece in recent years:
- The pandemic that caused a huge shock to the tourism industry.
- After the restart in 2022, the tourist flows were directed by the big tour operators to established destinations, mainly in the Aegean, the Ionian and Crete.
- Arrivals and overnight stays from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were almost eliminated.
Mr. Sakellaropoulos emphasized that with a dynamic program of tourism promotion, the Region of Western Greece managed to contain the levels of incoming tourism that showed a decline in 8 of the 13 regions of the country.
FIREWORKS
Spirits were further sharpened, in another question from the faction of Kostas Karpetas, on the occasion of the recent episode, of the former deputy regional governor Lambros Dimitrogiannis who called on Christos Paisios to resign from the position of the president of the regional council, accusing him of interfering in the issue of the change of court map.
The deputy regional governor Charalambos Bonanos spoke of wild characterizations like fireworks, which have nothing to do with reality. The way the Karpeta faction is bringing the issue of the new judicial map to the council is purely for sensationalism and hurts the common effort not to change the judicial structure of the district, said Mr. Bonanos, who said: “I am sincerely sorry for the ease with which such loaded words are used, just to create temporary impressions that are disruptive to the issue of the new judicial map.”
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