Minister of Tourism Kefaloyanni continues his contacts in Türkiye

The Greek delegation headed by the Greek Minister of Tourism Olga Kefaloyanni, who is in Turkey, met with the delegation of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TÜRSAB) in Istanbul.

According to the written statement made by TÜRSAB, the Greek delegation, which included the Greek Minister of Tourism Olga Kefaloyanni and her husband Minos Matsas, was accompanied by the Consul General of Greece in Istanbul Konstantinos Koutras, Vice President of the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) and Senior Advisor to the Minister Konstantinos Zikos and GNTO International Offices Director Angeliki Varela.

TÜRSAB delegation included Firuz Bağlıkaya, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Davut Günaydın, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Hasan Eker, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Talip Aldemir, Member of the Board of Directors.

"We have a very good co-operation with TÜRSAB"

Minister of Tourism Olga Kefaloyanni reminded that they recently signed a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey and said: "Since GNTO is the relevant authority of our Ministry in practice, many mutual agreements and meetings are held through them. 10 years ago, when I was the Minister of Culture and Tourism, we had a very good cooperation with TURSAB and I am very happy that we will cooperate in this framework again."

"Visa application at the door will be valid all year"

Kefaloyanni also touched upon the issue of visa at the door application to 10 Greek islands this year and said: "We are also very happy that the visa at the door application will start in March and continue throughout the year. We think that this programme is also very important culturally in terms of both tourism movements and our peoples getting to know each other and making contact. I would like to emphasise that for us, not only seasonal tourism but also sustainability is important in tourism. I believe that we need to achieve this and our work should be in this direction."

"We expect the visa application at the door to be extended to other islands"

Firuz Bağlıkaya also said, "We want to accelerate our joint work in the field of tourism with our neighbouring country Greece, based on the vision put forward by our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regarding the relations between Türkiye and Greece."

Stating that the cultural and historical ties between Türkiye and Greece are effective in the development of tourist traffic, Bağlıkaya said:

"Our mutual tourism traffic is around 500 thousand tourists each. We are making every effort to increase this capacity as much as possible. On this occasion, I would like to express my gratitude on behalf of all travel agencies and our Association for the visa application at the gate to the Greek islands. Of course, we hope that this application will be permanent. However, I would also like to express our expectation that the visa at the gate application will be extended to other islands in order to make cruise tours more comfortable."

Bağlıkaya also stated that they are very pleased with the efforts and results of the Greek Consulate in shortening the visa processes and obtaining faster results.