In Love with Greece! Travel Massive's Athens event is taking place on Friday 12 February 2016 at 18:00 at the Hard Rock Cafe Athens, Adrianou 52 Str.

Travel Massive Global https://travelmassive.com | Travel Massive Athens

Two days before the celebration of love, with the support of Content Traveller and Hard Rock Cafe Athens, you are invited to a special Travel Massive Athens Event in order to get together and share our love for the city we live in and the country we love: Greece.

All our travel industry friends are welcome to meet, exchange ideas and positive vibes! 

We are excited to announce our special guests for the evening:

Panagiotis Filippou awarded filmmaker of “Greek Skies”

Gold Award | Los Angeles International Film Festival

TripInView | World’s 1st Visual Travel Website

Hard Rock Cafe Athens is the perfect place to be for this great event that will be full of lovely surprises! "Love All, Serve All" is its motto! Right under the Acropolis at its wonderful 1st floor open space with a welcome drink in hand. You just can't miss it!

Share your love for travel...Rock your world for Greece!

Follow hashtags: #ThisIsHardRock #travelmassiveathens

For more information, please contact Villy Magnolia by email at E.villy.manolia@gmail.com

International tourist arrivals in Greece increased 5.7 pct in 2015 compared to 2014, the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) said on Thursday, announcing its official data collected from the country’s airports.

According to the report, 843,000 more tourists came to Greece in 2015, with the total number of airport arrivals reaching 15.5 million.

In December, Athens maintained its robust numbers with a 15.5 pct rise in arrivals compared to the same period of 2014, while for the entire year the Greek capital achieved an impressive 22.6 pct jump.

For the rest of the country, the Ionian and Cycladic islands secured the lion's share of tourists in 2015 recording a 3.7 pct and 15 pct boost in international arrivals respectively.

To read more, please visit: The TOC

Twenty selected destinations competed for the prestigious title of Best European Destination 2016 and Athens came in second!

Voting ended on February 10 with more than 288,000 votes for Zadar in Croatia who was elected Best European Destination 2016 and won the prestigious title.

The top 10 european best destinations for 2016 are:

Cosco Pacific is pushing for the inclusion of Piraeus in the plans of all major international cruise groups, and for its use as home port.

The aim of the Chinese company that won the tender for the acquisition of Piraeus Port Authority (OLP) is to swiftly develop the major potential of the Greek market and for Piraeus to emerge as one of the world’s biggest cruise ports as early as next year.

To that end, as soon as it has undertaken OLP’s management, Cosco will embark on infrastructure investments that will gradually reach up to (or even exceed) 135 million euros.

It is also beginning a consultation process with cruise groups such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSC, Celestyal and others in mid-March in Florida, in the context of the industry’s main annual exhibition, Cruise Shipping Miami.

To read more, please visit: ekathimerini

Greece's Alpha Bank SA has launched a process to sell Athens-listed Ionian Hotel Enterprises, owner of the five-star Hilton Athens, a source familiar with the matter said.

Alpha Bank, which holds 97.3 percent of IHE, wants to receive expressions of interest by a deadline of March 11. Citi is advising Alpha Bank on the sale, the source said.

Alpha Bank was not immediately available for comment.

The Greek bank is aiming to further strengthen its capital base with the share sale, which is valued at about 106 million euros based on its last closing price of 8.13 euros.

Greek banks that have been recently recapitalized with the euro zone's help have agreed to divest non-core banking activities and sell their participation in overseas assets.

Citi's head of Greece and Cyprus investment banking, Theodoros Giatrakos, is leading negotiations with interested parties, which have been given the option of bidding alone or teaming up in an investment consortium.

Hilton Athens was one of the venues that hosted recent negotiations between international creditors and the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in 2015.

To read more, please visit: Ekathimerini

Cremation of the dead is now legal in Greece, despite strong opposition from the Orthodox Church. The law on cremation was officially published in the Government Gazette.

The Church of Greece prohibits cremation. However, the bill that was passed in parliament mid-February provides that the choice of burial rites is every person’s right.

The law provides that any person can freely declare before a notary the type of funeral ceremony and the place of burial. With the notarized declaration of the person who wishes to be cremated, relatives and friends can grant his or her wish.

The law also says that if the wish of the deceased is not contrary to public policy, health regulations or moral traditions, the persons or services that have undertaken the burial of the deceased have to comply to the deceased’s wish.

To read more, please visit: Greek Reporter

In September 2012 two friends meet up on the rooftop of a building in New York. Panagiotis Madamopoulos-Moraris is in town for business and Nikos Koumettis is an already successful senior executive at The Coca-Cola Company. They are discussing the difficult circumstances in Greece and the high number of Greek scientists looking for work in the US. The two friends decide to do something to stop the brain drain in Greece. This is how ReGeneration was born – an initiative that aims to become the catalyst of internship culture in Greece.

ReGeneration is an initiative of the Global Shapers Athens Hub, a program of the World Economic Forum. As Spiros Milonas, ReGeneration’s project manager, explained, “Our aim is to give high-caliber young graduates with little or no work experience the opportunity to kick-start their career at a company in Greece, and in a job relevant to their studies and in a position that fits their personality.”

Designed by experts in human resources management, the program assists participants in discovering their capabilities and career path by combining academic background and talent through five stages. “This is how companies that participate in the program recruit the best minds and those who will evolve into the ideal business partner,” said Madamopoulos-Moraris, first curator of the Global Shapers Athens Hub.

ReGeneration is funded by The Hellenic Initiative (THI) and The Coca-Cola Company. The program’s success after just two years validates the “experiment,” Michael Printzos, program director at THI, told Kathimerini. He said that during 2014, the program’s first year, some 3,000 applications were received for positions at 21 participating companies, both Greek and multinational. A total of 55 paid internship positions were created and filled thanks to the program, and, at the end of the internship period, 80 percent of the interns renewed their contracts.

To read more, please visit: eKathimerini

During the 2016 Greek-Russian initiative, dedicated to the promotion of Greece to the Russian public and of Russia to the Greek public, Athens and Moscow are planning a series of cultural events aiming at 'renewing the traditional bonds of friendship and enhancing awareness and cooperation,' as described in a statement made by the ministry.

As part of the exchange program, the Acropolis museum will exhibit three golden objects from the Hermitage Museum’s collection of Scythian treasures, while the Russian museum will exhibit a marble statue of an Archaic Kore, lent by the Acropolis Museum.

The Acropolis Museum will inaugurate the exchange on March 11, 2016 during a precursor exhibition presenting exhibits from the Hermitage Museum as part of the cultural program titled 'Year of Russia in Greece.'

Originally posted on: GreekReporter

Despite uncertainty in the outbound holiday market in Europe and the ongoing publicity of the refugee crisis, Athens has not lost ground as a leisure tourism and city break destination, according to the Athens Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB).

“It’s business as usual for Athens at ITB”, the convention bureau’s press officer, George Angelis, told the Greek Travel Pages (GTP) on the sidelines of the trade show in Berlin. “We have not seen or heard anything that should cause some concern. On the contrary, we see that there is currently a healthy demand for Athens, particularly in for city break and leisure tourism”, he said.

The Greek capital was represented once again at ITB (the world's leading travel trade show) which took place in Berlin from March 9-13, 2016.

To read more please visit: GreekTravelPages

Now that the weather is getting warmer, what better way to explore the city's beautiful neighbourhoods and the historical center of Athens than by bike!

And if you don't own a bike, not to worry! The City of Athens has officially launched a pilot project, like so many other European capitals, for its own bike sharing service. The bicycles will be initially available at Technopolis in Gazi and the service has been available to the public since Thursday March 3rd, 2016.

AthensBikes, as the initiative is called, is a service that offers locals and visitors the opportunity to rent a bicycle in Athens for a small fee. For more information visit their website (in English) here.

 

Source: iefimerida