Greece Talks Crete 2026

Reflections from the room

On 13 March 2026, the island of Crete became the setting for one of the most substantive conversations the Greek hospitality sector has had in recent years. Greece Talks: Crete Forward, Experience, Culture & Connection, the sixth edition of the annual conference organised by Travel.gr, Greece’s largest travel media platform, in collaboration with Proto Thema, brought together an exceptional gathering of political leaders, institutional figures, business executives, and industry professionals at the Grecotel Amirandes in Heraklion. The Travelworks team had the opportunity to contribute to the preparation and delivery of the event.

The conference opened with remarks by Androniki Kolovou, Director of Travel.gr, who set the tone with clarity and conviction. Crete, she observed, is not merely a destination with strong numbers; it is a complete tourism narrative, one with cultural depth, extraordinary natural diversity, robust gastronomic identity, and a development trajectory that distinguishes it within the European landscape. The figures underscored the point: 2025 recorded more than 6.2 million arrivals on the island, a 5.8 per cent increase over 2024, which was itself a record year. The room, filled to capacity with professionals and decision-makers from across the sector, reflected both the relevance of the agenda and the appetite for structured, high-level dialogue on Greece’s most consequential tourism market.

The programme moved across a range of themes spanning infrastructure investment, connectivity, gastronomy, and the island’s long-term positioning as a global destination. Panels featured, among others, the Deputy Prime Minister of Greece, the Minister of National Economy and Finance and President of the Eurogroup, the Governor of the Crete Region, and the CEO of Eurobank, alongside leaders from the hospitality, transportation, and construction sectors. The breadth of participation was a signal in itself: Crete’s trajectory is no longer a hospitality conversation alone; it is a national economic one.

Building a global tourism brand: insights from the panel

Among the sessions that drew particular attention was the afternoon panel titled “The experience of a global tourism brand,” which brought together five voices representing the full spectrum of Greek tourism, from national strategy to resort operations. The panel was moderated by Kostas Panagakis of Travelworks.

Andreas Fiorentinos, Secretary General of the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO/EOT), spoke to the challenge and responsibility of managing a brand of Greece’s scale. His contribution framed the conversation at the institutional level: destination marketing is not simply a matter of promotion but of coherent narrative construction, strategic market prioritisation, and long-term reputation management. The GNTO’s work increasingly intersects with product quality, not only communication.

Ilias Kikilias, Director General of INSETE (the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation), brought a data-informed perspective to the discussion. INSETE’s research consistently illustrates the gap between Greece’s volume performance and its revenue per visitor relative to comparable Mediterranean competitors. The opportunity, as Kikilias framed it, lies not in attracting more visitors per se, but in elevating the quality and yield of the offer, which in turn demands coordinated investment across accommodation, experience, and infrastructure.

Andreas Metaxas, CEO of Metaxa Hospitality Group, contributed a perspective grounded in the realities of operating a recognisable hospitality brand in a competitive international environment. Building a brand that travels, that resonates beyond the domestic market and commands recognition among discerning international travellers, requires consistency, patience, and deliberate storytelling. The brand is never only the product; it is the cumulative perception formed across every touchpoint.

Giorgos Spanos, Vice President and CEO of Domes Resorts, offered a view shaped by one of Greece’s most recognised luxury resort groups. Domes has pursued international visibility deliberately, competing not merely within the Greek market but against the world’s most prominent resort destinations. Spanos noted that the Greek product has genuine competitive strengths, but that capitalising on them requires a long-term commitment to brand investment, design excellence, and the ability to tell a story that is both authentically local and internationally compelling.

Ilias Kokotos, Director of Business Development at Elounda Collection Hotels and Resorts, rounded out the panel with insight from one of Crete’s most storied hospitality clusters. His contribution spoke to the particular demands of managing brand reputation within a portfolio context: how individual properties contribute to a collective identity, and how that identity must be sustained and communicated consistently across markets and channels.

Across the discussion, several themes emerged with clarity. First, the distinction between destination brand and property brand: the two must reinforce each other, yet each carries distinct responsibilities. Second, the imperative of moving beyond volume as the primary measure of success, in favour of metrics that reflect quality, spend, and return rate. Third, the role of authentic narrative: in a global market saturated with imagery and claims, the brands that endure are those capable of communicating something genuinely distinctive. Greece, and Crete in particular, possesses the raw material for that narrative. The work lies in shaping and sustaining it with rigour.

The conversation reinforced what practitioners in hospitality marketing observe daily: building a global tourism brand is a long-term discipline, not a campaign. It requires alignment between institutional ambition, product quality, and the communication strategies that connect them to the right audiences, in the right markets, at the right moment.