Minister of Development Nicolaos Christodoulakis Greek Government photo

W ith the Olympic Games to be held in 2004, Greek officials are thinking about how to transform their country into a modern tourism destination, combining its traditional strengths as an open museum of ancient Greece and a wonderful sun and sea destination with modern attractions and world-class facilities.

One of the most ambitious new projects being planned is the establishment of a theme park in the Athens area (featuring attractions drawing on Greek mythology) that will take advantage of the newly opened airport and the revival of the Athens region as a tourism mecca.

Spurred by the Olympics to greatly expand and improve the capital city's infrastructure, the government wants to use the opportunity of the Games to transform Athens from its dowdy, polluted image into a major travel and recreation center.

Karathona at Nafplion in the Peleponnese is one of dozens of seaside properties the Greek government is offering for commercial development. Hellenic Tourist Properties photo

To help this happen, the Ministry of Development, headed by Nicolaos Christodoulakis, one of the widely admired younger ministers in the government, has pushed through a plan for the government to withdraw from owning and managing tourism properties, seeking instead private investors to lead the development of this sector.

Christodoulakis says that the tourism industry in Greece expects an "extensive impact before, during and after" the Olympic Games in 2004.

The transformation of Athens is well on its way. The minister says that already "vast improvements" have been made in the capital's environment, with much cleaner air and modernized transport.

Putting tourism development more fully in private hands is a major shift in policy, as the government has been heavily involved in the sector for decades, leading with a major building program in the 1960s and, through the Greek Tourism Organization (EOT), since then running a network of hotels and resorts while promoting tourism internationally.

In 1993 it was decided to sell off government tourism holdings, but it was not until 2000 that the process really got under way with the creation of Hellenic Tourist Properties S.A. (HTP), a company holding the property assets with the mandate to lease or develop them on a commercial basis.

Christodoulakis says that a priority for the government is attracting foreign investment to all sectors, including tourism, and he is paying a visit to the United States in the first week of June to interest investors in tourism investments. This will be the fist major international promotion of the investment opportunities now available.

By this time, most of the government hotels, especially the national chain under the Xenia name, are seriously run down and other facilities such as EOT-run beaches are basic at best. Faced for more than two decades with strong private sector competition, the government properties have suffered from steep declines in income and and profits.

But the silver lining of the long delay in the government developing and modernizing its properties is that HTP now has a portfolio of prime property sites around Greece that can be developed with environmental and aesthetic considerations uppermost.

Many of the parcels of land are the last large, unified sites available in strategic locations along the shoreline, and many of the Xenia hotels while run down sit on prime plots and can be replaced with modern resorts that take full advantage of great natural positions.

Tassos

Chomenidis, the managing director of HTP, says "it is good that many of the prime tourist sites were not developed in the past because the Greek coast would look like the Costa del Sol," referring to the Spanish resort area packed with tourist hotels, restaurants and other facilities.

Chomenidis says that HTP is interested in seeing developments that are harmonious with the environment and avoid the creation of over-crowded resort areas.

"We can now build with the environment in mind," he says.

HTP has $3 billion in assets, including some 300 properties around Greece, with a total area of 800,000 acres. Fifty of these are major sites and 30 are parcels of at least 1,600 acres each. The company also has five marinas, two casinos (one near Athens; one in Corfu), a golf course in Rhodes and some 50 small hotels. Fuji Bank is HTP's financial advisor.

Chomenidis points out that there is no theme park in the whole of central and eastern Europe, let alone the Balkans and Middle East (Disney Europe in France is the only major such park in Europe).

Acropolis Detail photo

He says that the Greek park would be the only one in the world located on the sea, and it would feature a number of aquatic attractions, as well as mythological themes. It should draw visitors from the whole of southeast Europe and as far away as Russia, he says.

It would also give visitors to Greece another good reason to visit Athens, a city that has been largely avoided in recent years in favor of travel directly to the islands or, for Americans, cruises around the East Mediterranean.

But this is just one of many opportunities for which HTP is looking for major international investors, especially companies that can bring both finance and expertise to the development of resorts, marinas and other tourism attractions and facilities.

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