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Επαγγελματική Αναβάθμιση Τουριστικών Πρακτορείων
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Greece, has developed its summer tourism ( the form of sea, sun, sand) at a satisfactory level. It has created a good picture and now the challenge is to improve its touristic services. But with regards to alternative tourism, our country has major weaknesses. Alternative tourism can become the springboard for improving Greece 's finances and income from tourism, the growth of the touristic season and the spread of tourists in the whole Greek territory which would bring development to the countryside. A major weakness identified is the fact that tour operators in the country do not have the knowledge, experience and appropriate business ethics so that they can convince tour operators and other agencies and organizations from other countries to make them their future partners and so, to enable Greece to be placed in the market of alternative tourism. The different attitudes of North Europeans (and in our case the Germans), different professional (and the general) culture, different rhythms of work and labor intensive, language restrictions, result in the existence of a gap of communication and trust that prevents business approach and cooperation. The result is thus, the non-utilization of all productive capacity of our country in the tourism (and particularly in the alternative) sector. Objectives of the plan is for 30 tour operators, managers and employees high in the hierarchy of travel agencies, to go to Germany for training and acquaintance with travel agencies, where they will attend classes of non-formal education around issues related to creating and maintaining partnerships with German tourist offices and work in these to gain a fuller picture of how the tourist offices in this country work. Simultaneously, their acquaintance with an environment highly professional and efficient will give them the opportunity to improve their professional knowledge, skills and adaptability to the new environment, to increase their autonomy, to improve and show their skills, and to finally improve their professional efficiency and become another building block in strengthening the tourism product of Greece. Furthermore, the positioning of the participants is planned to be between 1st of February and 15th of March, the time when most important exhibitions of tourism take place in Germany and where it is intended for the participants to visit them. The most important exhibitions, in which Pegasus participates, are: FREE München, CMT Stuttgart, ITB Berlin, BOOD Düsseldorf. The purpose of the mobility plan entitled "Professional Upgrade of Travel Agencies - UpTourAgent" is the participation of 30 people from Tourist offices and agencies of northern Greece, with priority to participate given to those agencies and officers that are based in Western Macedonia, where En Gnosi operates. The 30 people will be owners or executives or employees high in the hierarchy of travel agencies, and are knowledgeable of the jobs in question so within the span of two weeks they can learn and assimilate as much as possible new knowledge and be able to communicate this knowledge to other employees within the company. The placements will be in Germany and the host partner will be AK Pegasus Reisebüro GmbH, which operates in the field of tourism and whose CEO is Greek, which increases the effectiveness of the plan, since it will serve as a bridge of communication between the Greek participants and the German touristic agencies that they will be positioned, and at the same moment (the CEO) is one of the people who will be their trainer. To add to this, a second person will also be Greek. Placements will be in PEGASUS and already Pegasus has confirmations for cooperation with the following travel agencies in Germany, bringing the number of placement agencies to 4: TOUR MIT SCHANZ WILDBERG HERDER REISEN TOUR MIT SCHANZ WIESBADEN Participants in Germany will attend lectures acquiring knowledge on issues directly related to German and Greek tourist offices. The participants will be placed in the above mentioned placement companies, where they will do their practical training. The expected results are for the participant tourist offices to improve their professional capacities and efficiency, to create new partnerships between Greece and Germany with long-term effect of increasing visitors to alternative tourism, which in turn will boost the economy of the Greek countryside, and especially the Greek rural areas, where alternative tourism is considered as the main touristic product.
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