Tourism: the Greek bailout

Tourism is the engine that got the Greek economy out of the recession of the last six years, last year the country being visited by a record number of 18 million tourists, the authorities expecting 2014 to be an even better year, reports Bloomberg.

The successful return of Greece in the bond market is the most recent of positive signs in its economy, which included a record number of tourists last year and good prospects for the tourism sector in 2014, said minister Olga Kefalogianni.

"Great difficulties have been left behind. Trend is reversed, we will see how the Greek economy will recover this year," said Kefalogianni.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called the tourism industry, which accounts for about one-sixth of the GDP, "the main locomotive pulling the economy out of the painful recession in the past six years." Greece last year attracted visitors mostly from Germany, Britain, China and Brazil.

For this year, the Greek authorities, and the Association of Greek Tourism Companies anticipate that the number of tourists will continue to grow.

Besides the generated revenue, tourism is a major source of investment in Greece and Kefalogianni explained that part of the infrastructure improvement program aims to support the increase of the contribution of tourism to GDP.