Greece Hopes For 1.5m Tourists

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31080, 8 June 1966, Page 5

Greece Hopes For 1.5m Tourists

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter)

ATHENS.

Blue skies, mild tem-pei-atures, golden sandy beaches, attractive landscapes and historical sites are again welcoming tourists to Greece this year.

Experts estimate that the number of foreign visitors wiil exceed 1.5 million in 1966. And the tourists, it is calculated, will leave in the country more than £42 million in foreign exchange, badly needed to fill the wide gap in the trade balance.

In spite of the turmoil of an unprecedented political crisis last summer, with mob rule and riots in the streets of Athens, Greece received about a million visitors in 1965. The State-controlled National Tourist Organisation of Greece, with its new head. Professor 1. Georgakis, is hard at work co-ordinating tourist facilities. Many at-

tractions and festivals are being arranged to keep as many tourists as possible as long as possible under the spell of Greece, with its bright sunshine.

A welT-trained, smartly uniformed tourist police force has been assigned the delicate task of clearing Athens and‘other Greek towns of the swarms of gypsies, peddlers and beggars who besiege tourists sitting in outdoor cafes and restaurants sipping their drinks or tasting Greek food.

The Greek tourist police also have to look after that special category of tourists who come to the country hitch-biking and sleep on park benches or sandy beaches. These tourists are penniless and often form colourful groups of street singers.

Last year, an Australian with a guitar was joined by a young British girl student and a South African youth. Together, they visited the main taverns of Athens at night; singing songs and per-

forming dances in return for a meal provided by the owner of the restaurant

Visitors have already begun to arrive not only in Athens and on the mainland, but also in the Dodecanese islands, in Crete and Corfu. Entire families and groups are coming in cruise ships, by car and by air from Scandinavia, Europe, North Africa ind the United States.