Sports activities

Greece, the country where the Olympic Games were born, is ideal for the development of sports activities as well as holding sports events (sports tourism). During the past few decades, more and more big athletic events in many sports (world championships, European competitions, important international tournaments etc) have been organised in the country, culminating of course in the Olympic Games 2004, in Athens. These sports events have considerably contributed to the construction of many modern bigger or smaller sports facilities, stadiums and training centres for a wide range of sports all over Greece, where both the local people and visitors of the area have the opportunity to practise their favourite sports: from athletics, soccer, volleyball and basketball to tennis, golf, sailing or windsurfing.

Sea tourism

The wealth and diversity of the Greek seas, the endless kilometres of the Greek coasts and the thousands of Greek islands, the protected sea areas covering thousands of square kilometres, the mild climate, the high percentage of sunshine and its interesting and varying landscape make Greece the ideal destination for the development of sea tourism activities. This advantage is strengthened both by thousands of years of marine tradition and by conditions favourable for sea travelling: the Greek seas are considered safe, distances between coasts are small, while conditions related to wind strength, ambient and sea temperatures are equally favourable.

In Greece sea tourism started in the ‘60s and since then has been developing at a fast pace, especially in recent years.  Cruise ships under Greek flag organising short or longer cruises to Greek ports and ports of other countries of the Eastern Mediterranean amount to more than 160,000 GRT units and have a total capacity of over 10,000 passengers. Greek ports, however, are also visited by cruise ships under foreign flags, which annually bring more than 500,000 passengers into the country by sea.

Source: Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO)
The Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) is a Public Entity (PE) supervised by the Ministry of Tourism.
http://www.gnto.gr