Google Announces Initiative to “Grow Greek Tourism”

Written by Katerina Makatouni

Katerina Makatouni was born and raised in Crete. She studied Political Science and European Studies in Athens and then went to the UK for her Masters and Doctorate degrees. She stayed in England for 15 years, where she worked for market research and consulting companies. During the last 13 years, she has been living on the other side of the pond… Chicago at first and now Boston. She is the co-founder of Kairos Consumers, a consumer research agency. She has two girls (11 and 13 years old) who proudly say that they are Greeks and spend their summer holidays always in Crete.

Google, the Greek Tourism Ministry, the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO) and the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) announced the “Grow Greek Tourism Online” initiative for Crete last week. The initiative will aim to boost the online presence of Greek tourism businesses and help the country attract visitors all year round.

With the support of the Region of Crete, two events will be held in Heraklion (Atlantis hotel) and Chania (Minoa Palace) on 2 and 3 September, respectively, to give businesses a head start to promote their offers for the Autumn season.

The initiative will provide the Greek tourism industry with the necessary digital skills and online tools to boost development during and beyond the summer season. Greek enterprises will receive support from Google for the use of basic tools such as Google My Business and Google AdWords to improve their presence in search results and Google Maps and also to promote their offers during the off season.

All local businesses that are directly or indirectly related to tourism can participate in the events, free of charge, through the website: g.co/GrowGreekTourism.

According to Google, the initiative is expected to attract over 3,000 businesses of Crete’s tourism sector.

Google plans to expand the initiative to more Greek destinations in 2015.

Source: GTP as posted on 29 Aug 2014