Development of Thessaloniki Greece As A PDF

School of Economics and Business Administration
Consulting Project
“Development of Thessaloniki, Greece as a City Break

Tourism Destination”
Christos Patikas
September 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….....3
- Introduction………………………….……….………………………………...........4
- A.Literature Review………………………………………………………………....5
1. Destination Tourism Development, customer journey and the role of Destination
Management Organizations (DMOs)
 1.1. THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF A TOURISM
DESTINATION………………………………………………………….6
 1.2. DESTINATION LIFE CYCLE………………….…….……………7
 1.3. THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY………………………..……………9
 1.4. THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF DMOs………………………..…….11
2. Urban tourism characteristics, city break travel and decision making models
 2.1. URBAN TOURISM CHARACTERISTICS……………....….14
 2.2. CITY BREAK TRAVEL………………………………….…..16
 2.3. DECISION MAKING MODEL FOR CITY BREAK
TRAVEL………………………………………………………...…18
- B: Developing Thessaloniki, Greece as a city break tourism destination
1. Presentation of the city of Thessaloniki, Greece: Strengths and tourism assets of the
city.
 1.1. GENERAL AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF
THESSALONIKI……21
 1.2. CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL HERITAGE ASSETS…………….22
 1.3. RELIGIOUS SITES AND ASSETS……………………………….......23
 1.4. TRANSPORTATION, ACCOMODATION, BUSINESS AND
CONVENTION
FACILITIES………………………………………………………………...24
 1.5. YOUTH – LEISURE&RECREATION AND MEDICAL ASSETS…..25
2. The macro environment of the city - International, regional and national level
 2.1. INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL MACRO ENVIRONMENT…26
 2.2 NATIONAL TOURISM ENVIRONMENT.…………………………..28
 2.3. CITY LEVEL MACRO ENVIRONMENT – PESTEL
ANALYSIS………………………………………………………………....30
3. Thessaloniki, Greece as tourism destination – Micro environment analysis
 3.1. ORGANIZATIONAL PRESENT SITUATION…………………….....31
 3.2. PERFORMANCE OF THESSALONIKI AS TOURISM
DESTINATION – RECENT STUDIES AND DATA ANALYSIS
- 3.2.1. SOURCE COUNTRIES………………………………….32
-3.2.2. CONCLUSIONS ON SOURCE COUNTRIES
RESEARCH………………………………………………………..39
-3.2.3. PRESENT TYPES OF TOURISM………………………..43
-3.2.4. CRUISES…………………………………………….……44
4. SWOT analysis of Thessaloniki, Greece as a tourism destination………………..45
5. CONCLUSION AND STRATEGIES
PROPOSITIONS……………………….……………………………………………48
6. References…………………………………………………………………………...52
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● Abstract
Since the mid-20th century tourism industry has developed to a key sector of national
and local economies creating chances of development and prosperity for locals,
entrepreneurs and sector employees. From 25 million international tourist arrivals in
1950 the world has reached 1,035 million arrivals in 2012 creating a market
developing almost in terms of geometric sequence. Urbanization and evolution of new
trends in tourism consumer behavior connected with the experience economy have
created the new but growing sector of urban tourism. Cities as a leisure break have
nowadays become an almost contemporary phenomenon where tourists can get in
touch with local culture and everyday life. Especially the trend of numerous but short
vacations combined with the evolution of low cost air travel has created the
distinctive type of city creak travel, especially in Europe. Thessaloniki, Greece the
second in terms of population Greek city has all the potential of becoming a city break
tourism success story. This paper examines the distinctive characteristics of city break
travel and explores the potential of Thessaloniki, Greece to expand as tourism city
break destination conducting a throughout analysis of the present market position of
the city.
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● Introduction
Although urban tourism and city break travel is not a newly emerged tourism
phenomenon, little attention has been paid in analyzing the special characteristics of
the field and the unique incentives that lead tourism consumers to bring cities to the
center stage of visitation. Over the last two decades short leisure breaks in cities have
become a growing field of tourism demand especially in Europe where many urban
areas have gained (or regained) unique positions in the tourism destinations map. The
unique characteristics of cities offering multiple experiences without need of heavy
and risky transportation modes combined with the integration of the tourist to the
city’s milieu, everyday life and culture can create a competitive package of
experiences for almost all types of traveler’s income status. This democratization of
travel, also provided by low cost air travel, followed by the deep urbanization
phenomenon and the modern trend of more but short vacation has created a new
tourism market, city break travel.
According to IPK International’s European Travel Monitor, European city tourism

has increased by 20% in 2005, compared with just 3% in sun and beach holidays
(Freitag, 2006). This trend towards urban tourism has led to regeneration and rebirth
of many post-industrial European cities and urban spaces in general that were
excluded out of the tourism market for many years. Bratislava, Tallinn, Budapest,
Riga, Valencia are only few of the available examples. Moreover certain urban spaces
in developed tourism destinations as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Vienna, Paris or even
London have gathered the attention of city break travelers. As a result those
destinations achieved to extend their life-cycle by promoting new experiences in
emerging urban spaces of each site in cultural (MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, El Raval
in Barcelona) or even in spatial terms. Thus it is becoming more evident that city
break travel is actually a distinctive type of leisure travel that can be targeted as a
market segment for any urban destination.
Thessaloniki is a city that in theory can perfectly fit in the city break destination
tourism development format. Being the second in terms of population city in Greece,
Thessaloniki has a lot of characteristics for a tourism development success story. With
unique history background of more than 2300 years Thessaloniki hosts a great variety
of remains from different ancient civilizations but also a unique mosaic of modern
civilization residents and religions (Jewish, Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks). These
characteristics are enough to create a set of different but joint tales that can describe
the city’s sense as a unique crossroad of people and history.
Apart from the historical aspects Thessaloniki is a modern coastal city with more than
6km of walking waterfront and a well-protected big port which is very important both
in geographical but also in economic terms as logistics center. Moreover is the base of
3 Universities with 100,000 students and a major contribution to modern art, musical
and artistic events.
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Although the city seems of being able to use its strengths to compete in the European
city break destination market, Thessaloniki’s performance is relatively poor. In the
following chapters of the report firstly a throughout analysis of the literature review
regarding the city break travel phenomenon and its decision making models is
conducted. Secondly, after an analysis of the macroeconomic environment of the city,
the report examines in what extend Thessaloniki can fit in the city break travel
scheme and which are the main strengths and weaknesses of the city as tourism
destination. Finally conclusions and policy propositions are introduced.
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 Part A: Literature Review
1. Destination Tourism Development, customer journey and the role of Destination
Management Organizations (DMOs)
1.1 THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF A TOURISM DESTINATION
To enter the discussion and analysis over urban tourism development and the special
role of DMOs first there is a need of identifying the basic elements of the tourist
destination. According to the UNWTO “A practical guide to tourism destination
management” (UNWTO, 2007) any destination contains the following basic elements.
The perceived quality and accuracy of those elements are deeply influential of the
potential tourist’s decision visiting a certain destination.
 Attractions. These are often the main and initial motivations for a potential
visitor of the destination. Attractions can split to different categories whether
being tangible or intangible (e.g. uniqueness) as:
1. Natural (mountains, beaches, weather)
2. Built (heritage monuments, well known buildings, religious buildings,
stadiums)
3. Cultural (theaters, museums, art galleries, cultural events)
 Amenities. In this group are gathered all facilities or services that support
visitors’ stay. Including accommodation, roads, public transport, catering
services and guides or info services.
 Accessibility. This element is connected with everything that can make the
destination accessible to a large amount of population containing air, road,
train and cruise/ships travel services.
 Image. Another crucial element of destination’s success. Again there is
presence of both tangible (sights, scenes) but also intangible assets of the
destination such as the friendliness of people, their tourism culture and
environmental quality.
 Price. Especially in recent turbulent economic era pricing is crucial for a
destination’s success. Prices in transportation and accommodation can deeply
affect customer’s choices.
 Human Resources. This special aspect of a destination is rarely taken into
account from the policy makers but is equally crucial to the former. Well
trained workforce of a destination combined with citizens well aware of
tourism potential for the city can create miracles in terms of repeated
visitation.
Even using this simple typology to analyze the characteristics and assets of a
destination it is obvious that success of a tourism destination is a multidimensional
goal. A net of several actors is acting in the destination’s scene in order to produce
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what the visitor will perceive as the experience of the destination. Even a minor
detail can change the evaluation of the destination to visitor’s eyes with direct
consequences to the destination’s image. In those terms every destination needs an
organization-director of all the stakeholders connected with the production of the
destination’s tourism product. This is the role of DMOs.
Destination Management Organizations can operate in a national, regional or even

local level. “The DMO’s role should be to lead and coordinate activities under a
coherent strategy. They do not control the activities of their partners but bring
together resources and expertise and a degree of independence and objectivity to
lead the way forward.” (UNWTO, 2007, p.2) Thus DMO’s responsibility is to act
as the strategic coordinator of all the destination’s elements, marketing mix and
pricing. It is obvious that as crucial is the role of DMO for a destination the
difficulties that has to overcome are huge. This is mainly because of the
contradicted interests of the destination’s stakeholder. Thus DMO’s credibility has
to be secured in order all stakeholders to understand that destination’s tourism
development is for their common interest. Unfortunately this is not always the
case.
1.2. DESTINATION LIFE CYCLE
Every destination has unique characteristics that have to be identified before any
action taken. More specifically destination’s popularity is really dynamic. Success
of a certain destination is a really hard equation to solve. A main parameter of this
equation is the market maturity of the destination. This concept can be made
clearer using the graph below of the Tourism Area life Cycle model in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Tourism Area life Cycle
Source: Butler, R. W. (1980), ‘The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution’ Implications for Management of
Resources’, Canadian Geographer, 14, pp. 5-12
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The above model explains that tourism destination can face five different stages of
development.
 Exploration. Small numbers of visitors attracted mainly from nearby

sources attracted by cultural heritage or natural resources
 Involvement. In this phase the destination can offer more organized
facilities, locals are more involved, market areas begin to operate and
visitors may come from the nearby regions or the whole state.
 Development. This is the crucial part where a big amount of tourists arrive
and professionals of the market start to involve stronger. (Hotel chains,
tour operators etc). During this stage visitors arrive in national but also
international level.
 Consolidation. This is the part where tourism becomes a major economic
sector of the destination and attracts political but also economical
attention. Moreover during this specific part of development some initially
built facilities or marketing plans may need reconsideration to get
upgraded.
 Stagnation. In this phase the destination development has reached its
peak. This is the crucial moment where the presence of an experienced and
well facilitated DMO can rejuvenate the destination and reinvent visitor’s
willingness to explore fresh aspects of the destination. If no polices applied
the destination will inevitably decline.
This model except of being a really useful roadmap for any destination policy maker
indicates again the crucial role of the DMOs. Even at a local level it is obvious that
the policies applied for a destination’s development are different when the phase of
destination’s life cycle is considered. Thus DMO’s role is to asses destination’s
present phase and implement the appropriate policies in order to secure destination’s
proper development through its lifecycle. Without the presence of well facilitated
DMO, decisions are made just by luck or any other coincidences. If different
stakeholders involved in the DMO’s operations are acting independently may use
wrong amount of resources in inappropriate phases of the destination’s development
with obvious consequences to their livability.
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1.3. THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Another crucial element of a destination’s development is it’s actors to understand

how their consumers are experiencing the whole procedure of choosing, booking and
experiencing a destination. The following framework presented by Figure 2 can be
exist a useful roadmap for initiating policies that will give specific answers to every
step of the visitor’s journey from dreaming of a visit to a destination until actually
experiencing and remembering this experience.
Figure 2: The Customer Journey
Source: UNWTO (2007), “A practical guide to tourism destination management”, p.19
The above diagram represents the 5 phases of a visitor from dreaming of a destination
until the final step of the emotions caused from remembering this visit. More
specifically in accordance to the diagram the steps are:
 Dreaming. The initial part of the process where the customer already knows
that will take a vacation but has not chosen a specific destination. This is the
part where the potential visitor seeks of motivation on choosing one
destination versus another. The role of DMO at this stage is to offer all the
appropriate images or multimedia options available to customers. Using
updated IT infrastructure, internet and lately the social media can be a
competitive advantage for any destination at this level.
 Planning. The customer has a clearer idea of the broader region or the country
they will visit but a search of accommodation, transportation or whether
conditions combined with special attractions or events will affect the final call
of a certain country or city. A well managed destination can offer solutions for
the customer to this phase presenting all of the available alternatives for
reaching the destination and easily planning on it. Packaging of experiences at
the destination is useful tool for a DMO at this stage.
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 Booking. Search of best value for money options follows. If the customer is
price sensitive this stage may affect the customer’s decision regarding the
specific region or city that will be chosen. Booking can be made directly or
using intermediates such as tour operators or travel agents. Using proper IT
technology and a well managed website the DMO can secure that the potential
visitor can choose from all the available options for booking. This is actually
not just in favor of the destination but also of all the stakeholders providing
accommodation or transportation services at the destination level.
 Experiencing. This is the crucial part that consists of every experience the
visitor may have from the time of arrival to the destination until the time of
depart. This phase is broader consisting of everything from the type of
welcome the customer experience, the transportation and accommodation
infrastructure that uses, the attractions accessibility and the general flair of the
destination. If a DMO is absent from this procedure it is clear that secure of
quality to all of the above is up to every single service provider without any
control of the services offered.
 Remembering. The set of all of the above parts will definitely affect the
customer’s perceived image of the destination. The major part of this
perception is made of what mix of experience the customer has to remember
from the journey. If the overall mix is positive the customer may recommend
the destination to others. But if the mix is negative the customer will definitely
spread the bad perception or will not recommend the destination. The minor
part can be handled through a well organized DMO that will seek to keep in
touch with every single visitor using customer relationships management tools
in order to keep the experience fresh into customer’s minds.
This journey through visitor’s procedure is another evidence of the special role of a
DMO for a destination. In order to secure sustainable visitation a destination, as
explained above, has to offer certain answers to every step of the customer’s journey.
Thus it is obvious that those answers cannot be provided easily of every cluster of the
tourism product providers independently. A set of coordinated actions has to be
implemented with the participation of every stakeholder of the destination to reassure
that the customer’s journey will end up as a multiplier factor of visitation and not as
negative advertisement source. Finally involvement of local communities has to be
secured to any DMO’s planning procedure. Without the active participation of the
local communities through training programs or creative events and incentives the
final outcome will not add much to the destination’s perceived image
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1.4. THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF DMOs
The analysis of all of the above characteristics that need to be considered for a
destination’s development prove the complexity of the procedure. In order to reassure
that a destination will be guided through a growth path, the presence of a well
organized, well equipped and sufficiently budgeted DMO is essential. Thus to achieve
certain growth results for a tourism destination the joint forces of a local (or a
national) DMO have to act as the top management of a business organization. In those
terms DMO has the strategic role of governing the destination following the next
steps:
Figure 3: Strategic destination management steps
Market Research and analysis of

the competitors
SWOT analysis
 Strengths
 Weaknesses
 Opportunities
 Threats
Destination’s
Vision – Goals - Objectives
Implementation of strategies
Monitoring of results and

revision of strategies
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The strategic approach of the destination’s management should start with a market
oriented research of the environment of the destination. First step is to analyze the
macro environment and then the inner micro environment of the destination itself
conducting a SWOT analysis. The results of the SWOT analysis should lead to a
narrow and clear vision of the destination followed by specific goals and measurable
actions. Research at the first level is a key part and a crucial duty of a DMO. If a
policy or an action plan is implemented without sufficient research and market
information of the destination itself but its competitors also, failure will be an
inevitable consequence.
The second most important part if a proper research is done is implementation.

Numerous cases exist where great strategic plans were announced but the
implementation part was not executed either lacking political willingness or just
lacking resources. Implementation of strategies and action plans is obligatory to be
coordinated by the DMO. Because of different stakeholder’s approaches and special
interests, only DMO can secure the equal share of budget and benefits for all
“shareholders” of the destination. Actually, as UNWTO “A practical guide to tourism
destination management” (UNWTO, 2007) really figuratively states, the DMO has to
be in charge of the tourism destination “factory” and also be responsible for achieving
an excellent return on investment, market growth, quality products, a brand of
distinction and benefits to all “shareholders”. What should note is that the DMO does
not own the “factory”, neither employee people working on it, nor controls its
processes.
More specifically a set of actions that could be introduced by the DMO securing
destination’s vision can be the following:
- Destination marketing (promotional programs, branding)

- Development of destination’s products and packages
- Information and visitor services
- Tourist accommodation
- Integrated transport infrastructure
- E-business and information management
- Events
All of the above should be translated into specific action plans with completely
measurable targets, specific time deadlines of implementation and personal or
organizational responsibility of delivery.
Finally, last but not least is the part of monitoring results. DMO is responsible for
conducting ideally yearly research programs in order to secure if destination’s
direction is in line with its vision and strategies. Using this process destination’s
governance can intervene to shift policies or even to redesign destination’s planning.
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Following this pattern in the second part of the report, research and assessment of the
present situation, a SWOT analysis and major policy propositions are made for the
destination case of Thessaloniki, Greece.
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2. Urban tourism characteristics, city break travel and decision making models.
2.1. URBAN TOURISM CHARACTERSTICS
More than half of global population lives in urban areas. Especially in Europe, where
is the major market of interest of this report, 80% of population lives in towns and
cities. Except of the well-known problems this urbanization has caused to local
communities it was also a driving factor for emerge of urban tourism and especially
the distinctive type of city break travel.
Urban tourism entered in the tourism research agenda in the 80s. “Prior to the 80s,
research of urban tourism was fragmented and not recognized as a distinct field”
(Edwards et al., 2008:1034). Although the majority of studies regarding urban tourism
conclude that it is a complex type of tourism some basic characteristic-paradoxes are
mentioned by Asworth and Page (2010, pp 1-2):
 Urban tourism is an extremely important, world-wide form of tourism.

 Tourists visit cities for many purposes: Cities that accommodate most tourists
are large multifunctional entitles into which tourists can be effortlessly
absorbed and thus to become in a large extent economically and physically
invisible.
 Tourists make intensive use of many urban facilities and services but little of
the city has been created for tourist use.
 Tourism can contribute substantial economic benefits to cities but cities
whose economies are mostly dependent on tourism are likely to benefit the
least. Cities with a large and diverse economic base gain the most from
tourism.
 It is by no means that cities need tourism. Tourism on the other hand needs
the varied, flexible and accessible tourism product that cities provide. This
creates an asymmetry in the relationship between city and the tourist.
To secure better assumptions on urban tourism development a tourist perspective of

the use of the city can provide useful information for DMOs and policy makers. The
characteristics of how actually tourists use the city can serve as possible roadmap for
understanding tourist needs and thus transform part of the services offered by the city
in order to gain competitive advantage in the market. According to Asworth and Page
(2010, pp. 8-9) the main behavioral characteristics of the urban tourist are:
 Selectivity. Tourists tend to use limited proportion of space and services

offered by the city. Although this pattern is common even among residents of
cities, time-budget restrictions of tourists lead to even more selective choices.
Thus tourism is concentrated in specific regions of cities.
 Rapidity. “Tourists consume urban tourism products rapidly”. Length of stay
in an urban destination is much shorter than in any other type of leisure
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holiday (summer/winter resorts). Depending on the motivation of visit, length
of stay can vary from some minutes (must-visit attractions visitation) to two
days or more. Management of visitation is totally different for each type of
visit.
 Repetition. Tourists of urban destinations are less likely to return repeatedly
to the same city than visitors to non-urban destinations. This is a crucial factor
that differentiates strategies for city-destinations. Many urban tourists are
actually collectors of pre-marked cultural, event or unique heritage
experiences. Once the expectations of a certain destination have been full field
the collection can continue elsewhere. A paradox that occurs is that the more
unique an urban attraction is (e.g. Pisa) the less repeated visitation will face.
On the other hand the broader is the selling proposition of a destination
including city’s general ambiance or flair (e.g. Paris, Barcelona, London) the
more repeated visitation will occur. Thus two strategies exist for retaining
market position for each type of destination. Whether a destination keeps
investing in new markets that will substitute the former or reinvent its product
in order to attend visitation from existing markets (Morude, 2007). In
conclusion the more extended is the tourism product of an urban destination
the more possible is to reinvent itself and attract repeated visitation.
 Capriciousness. It is a common truth that tourism as part of human behavior
is really suffering from rapid changes in life-style or fashion. Popularity of
certain historic time periods or types of art is peaking or declining in different
periods of time. In those terms urban destinations connected with specific
attractions or purpose-built attractions itself may face certain periods of lack
of visitation or extra visitation. Responses to this phenomenon may be several.
The most frequent response is the alignment of destinations product
propositions with current fashionable celebrity status. This policy can boost a
destination but only for a very short period of time until the perception of
fashionable change. Several studies have shown that the best answer to this
problem is the rapid product differentiation within the destination’s
capabilities and the reinvention of a destination’s major attractions and sites.
Again the general assumption made from all of the above is that urban tourism is a
distinctive type of travel with its own characteristics and paradoxes. Thus to
overcome the paradoxes and turn characteristic into growth and economic success the
presence of a strategic organizational body is crucial. A local city DMO can act here
too as a local coordinator of urban tourism development using methods mentioned in
the previous chapter.
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2.2 CITY BREAK TRAVEL
City break represents a distinctive type of leisure holiday. A type of travel that Trew
and Cockerell (2002, pp.86) define as “a short leisure trip to one city or town, with no
overnight stay at any other destination during the trip”. This special segment of “one
city” travel has developed in large numbers during the last decade, especially in
Europe. Indicatively, according to IPK International’s European Travel Monitor,
European city tourism has increased by 20% in 2005, compared with just 3% in sun
and beach holidays (Freitag, 2006). The city break travel phenomenon helped several
cities to enter the tourism map and created opportunities for more to come.
The main question arising is what are the factors that caused the expansion of this
emerging type of travel. As Dunne, Flanagan and Buckley (2010, p.410) state the
major factors of the rising popularity of city break travel in Europe are:
 Low cost air travel. Increased availability of low cost air travel combined
with the point-to-point nature of this type of travel emerged accessibility to
new destinations. According to Dobruszkes (2013, p78) study, low-cost intra-
European air services (EU-27, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) have
climbed from almost 1% of total intra-European air services to 31% in 2012.
A possible drawback of this expansion is when a destination growth depends
only to low cost carriers. A destination should introduce a tourism product
proposition in the market that creates demand that airlines afterwards come to
serve. If this procedure implemented in the vice versa way, with the low cost
carriers come to serve an emerging destination without tourism development
strategy, the destination is totally dependent to carrier’s will.
 Length of holidays. Europeans tend to take more but shorter holidays. Thus a
majority of the population adds one or more trips in addition or adding to their
main annual holidays.
 New perception of cities as travel destinations.
 Internet. The increasing role of internet in the decision-making process
created extraordinary ease for exploring and booking holidays. Thus this
easier form of choosing transport and accommodation (which is the basic
elements of a short trip) minimized the perceived risk of the potential traveler.
 Seasonality. City break travel is a year-round holiday pattern. In those terms
accommodation providers promote this type of travel that can easily minimize
seasonality problem of their units.
Although city break type of holiday has mainly be presented as a positive growing
factor of the tourist market a number of concerns do exist. Firstly, deep dependence of
city break travel to low cost flights results of visitation of types of tourists that manly
uses this mode of transportation. Acceptance of mainly low-budget, backpackers or
youth type of tourists, which is the main source market of low cost airlines, is not
suited to any type of city. An up-market destination may suffer from integrating this
type of tourism. Secondly, according to some studies city break travel is expanding
16
against rural or regional tourism. This argument of course is subject to whether a
traveler wishing to visit a city would ever have any intention on visiting such areas.
Last but not least is the potential consequence of this type of travel to environment
and sustainability. CO2 emissions are strongly connected with air travel and emerge
of low cost carriers. If any type of green taxation is finally connected to air travel the
demand for city break travel may decline.
Although literature in city break travel phenomenon is relatively poor, Dunne,

Flanagan and Buckley (2010, pp.409-417) after conducted a throughout research in
tourism of Dublin have concluded that city break travel can be described and
understood using 5 characteristics that make city break a distinctive type of travel.
The “The 5 Ds of city break travel”, as entitled by the authors, are:
 “Duration”. The major distinctive characteristic of city break travel is the

length of stay. Most city breaks are short (usually three nights or less). The
reasons behind this pattern are mainly three. Firstly, most city breaks are
secondary trips, additional to main summer or winter holidays. Secondly, it is
common sense that the majority of attractions and experiences a city can offer
can be explored in just a few days. The same pattern is more obvious when
city break travel incentive is a certain event taking place in a city. Finally,
cities as destinations can serve perfectly the international trend of more
frequent but shorter holidays. Cities are usually easily reachable by more than
one modes of transportation, offer easy and time-economy ways of in-city
transfer and most of the times all attractions are reachable in an organized
way. Thus a traveler can spend most of time effectively in leisure and
recreation actions and not supplementing procedures.
 “Distance”. Because of the limited time of most of city break holidays, this
type of tourists tends to prefer nearby destinations that can be easily and
quickly reachable mainly via air travel. Obviously expansion of low cost air
travel has played a significant role to this tendency. Multiple low cost carriers
offering cheap flights from several neighbor source markets are a crucial
factor of development of a destination as a city break one. Trains, boats, roads
and cruises can also deliver demand but in minor density compared to air
travel and mainly depending on destination’s geographical position.
 “Discretionary nature”. As mentioned to other previous chapters too, city

break travel operates mostly as a secondary trip. In those terms the presence of
opportunistic aspect is more frequent. The increasing role of internet has
created opportunities of “last minute” travel mainly to nearby city break
destinations. Although the former pattern is not a main driving factor of city
break development it gives the sense of the consumer’s behavior concerning
this type of travel. The main question when a main holiday is planned is the
place/city/region that will take place. In contrary to this city break travelers
17
tend to give priority firstly on answering the inner question on whether to go
and afterwards deciding where to go. A number of researches have shown that
a big proportion of city breakers has answered both questions at the same time,
after came across a good city break in economic terms. This also implicates
the great value of marketing tool of offers to consumer’s decision of a
destination process.
 “Date flexibility”. A distinctive characteristic of city break travel is the

absence of seasonality bias. Existing as a complementary trip, city break is
usually organized in low-demand periods, weekends or around dates of big
local events. This creates a relatively lucrative market for the accommodation
and transportation sector that suffers from the seasonality pattern.
 “Destination travel party”. According to several studies (Flanagan and

Dunne, 2005; Trinitry Research, 1989) a high proportion of urban tourists
travel without children. This is mainly because the majority of city break
travelers doesn’t have children, or use this break in order to escape for few
days from parenting. Finally, another reason why city break travelers travel
mostly in couples or alone is the perception of cities as unfriendly destinations
for children compared to other types of holidays (resort, all inclusive etc).
In conclusion the profile of the city break travel, mainly based on Dunne, Flanagan
and Buckley’s (2010, pp.409-417) study can be described as secondary trips, short in
duration and mainly operated through short haul air travel to neighbor countries.
Moreover most trips are made off-season and participants tend to travel with friends
or as couples.
2.3. DECISION MAKING MODEL FOR CITY BREAK TRAVEL
The above brief description of the distinctive type of city break travel has been
analyzed in detail to a second study of Dunne, Flanagan and Buckley (2011, pp.158-
172) that produced a dominant model towards understanding the procedure of
decision making of city break travelers.
The findings of the study have proved that city break decision making model does not
fit with the traditional models. Therefore the researchers created a new model that
could correspond better to the distinctive characteristic of this special type of travel.
Figure 4 represents graphically this model.
18
Figure 4: City break decision making model
Source: Dunne, Flanagan and Buckley “Towards a decision making model for city break travel” (2011, p.169)
This model consists of three steps. This feature of model is notable given that most of
other models consist of more, without being simplistic. The first step of recognition of
travel is almost commonly the first step of models. What differentiate city break
decision making is that this need is affected by certain situational variables such as the
need of an escape of routine and daily life. Moreover the initial part of decision
making connected to the question of whether or not to take the trip is deeply
important. This is because as explained above city break is a discretionary mode of
travel that makes question of where to go less important that whether to go or not
given the fact that city breaks may come out of the blue under certain circumstances.
Thus a distinction has to be made between generic and actual decision on going to a
destination or not.
The second box consists of three different steps but considered as one. Contrary to
traditional models, where travelers actually react distinctively to each part, in city
break travel, information search, evaluation of alternatives and even purchase is
happening simultaneously mainly because of the ease the internet provides. In some
cases the evaluation of alternatives part is bypassed because of attractive low cost or
last minute city break packages.
Finally the last step which is usual for most decision making models is the post
purchase evaluation. The procedure is almost classical except from the fact that
usually in this type of travel there are no intermediates to blame for lack of quality of
services.
19
In the vertical axis of the three main steps a number of factors appear including
internal and external variables, nature of trip and situational factors. In more detail:
 Internal variables: motivation, personality, perceived image, lifestyle

 External variables: push and pull factors, constraints, marketing mix, social
class, culture.
 Nature of trip: This is the most important factor of city break travel because it
consists of the crucial components of distance, duration, travel party size
 Situational factors: Usually those factors are part of external variables but in
city break travel those factors can change completely the decision making
procedure.
20
 Part B: Developing Thessaloniki, Greece as city break tourism destination
1. Presentation of the city of Thessaloniki, Greece: Strengths and tourism assets of the
city.
1.1 GENERAL AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF THESSALONIKI
Thessaloniki, Greece is located in the Northern part of Greece (520 km. north of
Athens) in the region of Central Macedonia. Being the second in terms of population
city of Greece (population of all the metropolitan area in 2011 reached a total of
1.104.460 inhabitants) and the fifth in Balkans, is the second most populated city that
is not a capital after Istanbul. Built near the sea (at the back of the Thermaïkos Gulf),
Thessaloniki is Greece's second major economic, industrial, commercial and political
centre, and a major transportation hub for the rest of southeastern Europe.
Founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, Thessaloniki's history spans some

2,300 years. An important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the
second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire. The impregnable walls
kept the city free until 904 when Saracen Pirates took the city. In 1185 and 1430 the
city passed successively to the hands of the Normands and the Turks.
During the Ottoman period, the city's Muslim and Jewish population grew. By 1478
Selânik, as the city came to be known in Ottoman Turkish, had a population of 4,320
Muslims, 6,094 Greek Orthodox and some Catholics, but no Jews. 1492 is the crucial
year for the history of Thessaloniki because of the arrival of the Sephardic Jews from
Spain followed from more Jews arriving from central Europe, giving the city the
name mother of Israel or second Jerousalim. Soon after the turn of the 15th to 16th
century, nearly 20,000 Sephardic Jews had immigrated to Greece from Spain
following their expulsion. By ca. 1500, the numbers had grown to 7,986 Greeks,
8,575 Muslims, and 3,770 Jews. By 1519, Sephardic Jews numbered 15,715, 54% of
the city's population.
Those population proportions were established in the region almost until the
beginning of 20th century when newly founded Greek state benefited from demolish
of Ottoman Empire and captured the city in 1912. The other major event that changed
population ethnicities proportions was a major fire in 1917 by accident. Most of the
old center of the city was destroyed and the fire swept through the centre of the city,
leaving 72,000 people homeless most of them Jewish (50,000). Following the fire the
government prohibited quick rebuilding, so it could implement the new redesign of
the city according to the European-style urban plan prepared by a group of architects,
including the Briton Thomas Mawson, and headed by French architect Ernest
Hébrard. This was a major loss for Jewish population of the city which became even
worse later on after the majority of Jewish population perished in 1943 after the
deportation to Auswitz, Birgenau and Bergen Belsen. By this time demographics of
21
the city changed completely to secure the nowadays state of the city where Christian
orthodox Greeks are the vast majority of the inhabitants.
This rough presentation of the city’s history is obligatory because the most important
asset of Thessaloniki is its turbulent route through history. This special route found
the city being part of almost all the important empires of the European history always
with a cosmopolitism sense. This special legacy delivered until recent years is
resulting a unique mosaic of civilizations, attitudes, architecture, and culture. Until the
mid of 20th century the city was home to more than one ethnic proportion creating a
unique sense for residents and visitors. This sense, although actually hidden, is
present even today creating a unique opportunity for the potential visitor to explore.
1.2. CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL HERITAGE ASSETS
As described roughly, Thessaloniki has a unique history background of more than

2300 years. A great variety of remains from different civilizations among of which are
the following: Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman. Moreover Thessaloniki
exists as a unique mosaic of modern civilization residents and religions (Jewish,
Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks). These characteristics are enough to create a set of
different but joint tales that can describe the city’s sense as a unique crossroad of
people and history. 15 World Heritage Monuments of UNESCO are located in
Thessaloniki (The City Walls, the Byzantine Bath, the Rotunda and 11 Byzantine
churches) which combined with the Archeological Museum and the Museum of
Byzantine Culture are an indicator of the city’s strong cultural assets.
Moreover, as mentioned above, due to the presence of a long run of different

civilizations through time, a lot of remains of Ottoman and Jewish interest are located
in Thessaloniki. The house that the politician-symbol of the modern Turkish
Democracy, Kemal Ataturk, was born is now a renovated museum and the place-
square where thousands of Jewish citizens of Thessaloniki were gathered by Nazis to
violently move to Auschwitz concentration camp are only two of them.
Finally the city is located less than an hour from unique global historical heritage sites
such as the ancient city of Vergina, capital of the Macedonian civilization (where
tombs of Philip II King of the Macedons are found), the ancient city of Pella, the
archeological site of Dion and finally the famous Mount Olympus.
Except historical heritage assets Thessaloniki has to offer a variety of modern cultural
assets too. Home of the 53 years old Thessaloniki international Film Festival, the
2012 WOMEX expo and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art the city has
a lot to offer in modern arts too.
From the tourism development perspective it is obvious that Thessaloniki is extremely

rich in cultural and historical heritage assets of more than 2300 years. A potential
visitor can “bring back to life” historical periods thousand years back in time. The
emerging tourism market segment of cultural and history tourism has to be a target
22
market for the city both in classical but also in differentiated ways. Except of being a
hot spot for ancient and modern history lovers Thessaloniki can offer personalized
cultural and heritage experience for different types of nationalities. Besides the
obvious Greek and Western Europe market, Thessaloniki’s cultural heritage can target
tourists from both Turkey and Israel in a more personalized way.
1.3. RELIGIOUS SITES AND ASSETS
Thessaloniki except of a brilliant mosaic of different civilizations through history is

also a live museum of different religious monuments. Mainly Orthodox but also
Catholics, Muslims and Jewish have created their own churches, mosques and
synagogues in new areas but also by transforming other religion’s buildings
(according to which dogma was the dominant of the city on specific time).
Thessaloniki is nowadays home to unique early Christian and byzantine monuments 9

of which are part of World Heritage Monuments of UNESCO (i.e. Rotonda, Church
of Acheiropoiitos, Church of Ag.Dimitrios, Church of Ag.Sofia and more). Some of
them transformed into mosques during the Ottoman times of the city but
retransformed again in the early 20th century.
Moreover less than 150km from the city center is located the world famous Mount
Athos. It is a mountain and the easternmost peninsula of Chalkidiki. Home to 20
Orthodox monasteries, it forms a self-governed monastic state. Another UNESCO
World Heritage Site, Mount Athos is famous except the obvious religious reasons for
the distinctive Byzantine architecture of the monasteries also. Although only men can
visit the peninsula, Thessaloniki is the ideal base for a day-trip to Mount Athos.
Due to the rapid changes in political and nationality terms through times and
especially in the early 20th century, little number of non-Orthodox religious buildings
and monuments exist. New Mosque, Alatza Imaret and Hamza Bei Cami are among
the most important Muslim religious remaining of the 500 hundred Ottoman
domination of the city. Nonetheless they can be considered as landmarks for the city
because of their special architecture and historical value.
Finally there is almost no Jewish religious remaining mainly due to a major fire back
in 1917 that destroyed most of the Jewish part of the city.
Except of the historical and cultural interest of all these assets of the city, there is a
special religious interest also. Thessaloniki has the opportunity in touristic
development terms to be considered as a “Mecca” of Orthodox dogma, without
preventing any other dogma visitors, with great impact on its tourism success.
Especially in the city-break framework, religious tourism for nearby orthodox Balkan
countries can be a great incentive for visitation. The case is such for Russians too
even though the distance is bigger
23
1.4. TRANSPORTATION, ACCOMODATION, BUSINESS AND CONVENTION FACILITIES
Thessaloniki has developed through time as a major commercial center. Because of its
unique geographical position, the city is home of one of the biggest ports in the
Mediterranean Sea with a total annual traffic capacity of 16 million tones. As a free
port, it also functions as a major gateway for the Balkan hinterland and southeastern
Europe. It contains the second largest container port in Greece, after the Port of
Piraeus. A cargo terminal with a total storage area of 1,000,000 m2, an oil and gas
terminal and an upgraded passenger terminal mainly used for intra-Aegean routes but
for cruise ships also.
Thessaloniki is also the crossroad of two major Greek and European highways. The
Egnatia Highway which connects the city with the Turkish borders, all the Balkan
countries borders and the port of Igoumenitsa located in Western Greece and the
PATHE Highway which mainly connects the city with Athens and southern Greece.
Thessaloniki’s “Makedonia” airport is the major hub of incoming tourism for the city.
It is located about 15 km SE of the city center. Although an expansion is in plan,
Makedonia Airport is able to serve more than 4,000,000 passengers per year from its
two runaways. The expansion of one of the runaways will make the airport able to
serve heavier aircrafts that would probably give a boost to the arrivals for the region
in general.
Although Thessaloniki can be explored from east to west in about 30 minutes walk,
owns a convenient and cheap but a bit outdated bus system connecting all suburbs to
the city center. In addition plenty of taxis are available for more quick transportation
in the city.
Hospitality industry in Thessaloniki is a major asset and strength for the touristic
development of the city. Thessaloniki has a hospitality capacity of 14,345 beds (24%
5*, 19.2% 4*, 31.63% 3*, 14.37% 2* and 11% 1*). It is obvious that the majority of
hotels is average and above which is a really crucial asset of the city as an emerging
tourism destination both for leisure but also for business travelers. Moreover most of
Thessaloniki’s 4* and 5* has the ability to organize conferences and convention but
mainly of a small scale.
In business sector, Thessaloniki has also the great privilege of being the host of the
so-called International Trade Fare of Thessaloniki. The 1st TIF was organized in 1926
and it has evolved into a significant economic and political event in Greece and the
greater Southeastern Europe vicinity although the last years is in deep need of
modernization. The most positive outcome of the initiation of the TIF is the
HELEXPO infrastructure area. HELEXPO S.A. is the exclusive user of the
International Exhibition Center of Thessaloniki which is developed over an 180,000
square meter area in the center of the city and includes conference centers I.
VELLIDIS and N. GERMANOS. The calendar of fairs organized by HELEXPO S.A.
includes some 20 international sector fairs which run on an annual or biannual basis.
24
There is a new plan for the International Exhibition Center of Thessaloniki moving
outside of the city center creating modern exhibition facilities and a new era for the
business tourism sector in the city.
Infrastructure of Thessaloniki’s hotels combined with the experience of international

trade fairs and the existence of big conference centers offer a great range of
conference spaces for large or smaller meetings, up to 2,700 participants. More
specifically, as mentioned previously, in the heart of Thessaloniki and inside the
installations operated by HELEXPO we find the International Conference Centers
IOANNIS VELLIDIS and NIKOLAOS GERMANOS with a capacity of 40 to 2100
seats. Furthermore, Thessaloniki Concert Hall offers a hall with a capacity of 1400
seats, Lazaristes’ Monastery includes of a 700 seat hall, offering a full range of
modern amenities, while there are several halls in Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, such as the Ceremony Hall, with a capacity of 800 seats. Although still
there is need of further extension of capacities and modernization of services,
Thessaloniki is able to host medium and small conference and convention events
which can be a turn point to the city’s tourism development because in contrast with
the leisure market, business market seems to grow even in crisis times.
1.5. YOUTH – LEISURE&RECREATION AND MEDICAL ASSETS
Thessaloniki’s greater modern landmark is its totally renovated waterfront area. By

the end of 2013 citizens and visitors of Thessaloniki will be able to walk by the sea to
a modern multi-theme area of 6km. Although it seems strange this special area has the
ability to become the most value asset of the city because of the images it creates all
time of the year for everyone using it. It is the place that can be a trademark of the
new spirit of the city.
Being the home city of the biggest student and academic community in Greece (1/10
of its population are students and university professors) who are allocated in 3
universities and one technical institution Thessaloniki can easily be described as a
lively city despite its age. In addition the city belongs to the European Union’s
Innovation Zone, an area designed to house innovative enterprises and research
organizations. In recent years local groups have created a great force of creativity
keeping the city spirit alive both in academic innovation terms but also in simple
youth initiatives and actions. Moreover the wide nightlife of the city adds to its youth
preface. A great proof of the above and a great opportunity for the city also, is the
nomination of Thessaloniki as the European Youth Capital of 2014. Such an
organization can move the center of the city’s main touristic provision from the great
history of the city to the present and the future character that needs to create.
A key-factor both in negative but also in positive manner is the vicinity of the city to
the famous beaches of Chalkidiki peninsula. A potential leisure traveler – visitor of
the city can find him/herself to the ideal scenery of one of the Chalkidiki beaches
25
without needing to sleepover. This creates a great opportunity for the development of
Thessaloniki as a city-break destination because the potential visitor can easily visit a
unique leisure place without need to change the initial plane of residence. It creates a
great incentive for a short break traveler who needs to combine leisure and recreation
activities having little time to do so.
In the same context of leisure and recreation city-break travelers, another asset of the
city is the vicinity with a couple of thermal springs again in less than 100km distance.
Although these types of facilities are not easily reachable by tourists, thermal springs
stand as another major incentive for a potential visitor.
Finally, Thessaloniki in the late years has to offer an emerging supply in the medical
sector. Top quality medical services combined with modern (mainly privately owned)
facilities are another asset of the city that can create tourism development if the
bureaucratic drawbacks disappear.
2. The macro environment of the city - International, regional and national level
2.1. INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL MACRO ENVIRONMENT
Thessaloniki, as mentioned above, is located 520km north of Athens. Thus the

geographical region of interest in tourism terms is the southeastern Mediterranean
region and the Balkans.
According to UNWTO “Tourism Towards 2030” (UNWTO, 2011) the number of

international tourist arrivals worldwide is expected to increase by an average 3.3% per
year over the period 2012 to 2030. In absolute numbers international tourists are
expected to reach 1.4 billion by 2020 and 1.8 billion by 2030 from the 940 million of
2010.
The key fact is that emerging economy destinations including Eastern Europe and
Eastern Mediterranean Europe will “grow at double the pace (+4.4% a year) of that in
advanced economy destinations (+2.2 a year)”. Thus although travel to Europe are
projected to decline as proportion of the international arrivals (from 51% to 41%) this
is not the case for the macro environment of Thessaloniki. In other words the region
of Eastern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Europe will absorb a big proportion of
the growth in the continent. Another crucial aspect is the differentiation of source
markets. Although Europe will still be the leader of outbound tourism, new emerging
countries and regions contribute in the international arrivals. China (and the whole
Asia and Pacific region) and Russian Federation are expected to play an increasing
role in the source markets geographical position. Especially for Russian Federation
status, a big source market of Thessaloniki, in 2012 raised its expenditure rates from
$42.8 billion to 32.9 in 2011.
The following figure 5 presents the international forecast as presented by UNWTO.
26
Figure 5: UNWTO Towards 2030: Actual and forecast 1950-2030
Source: UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2013 Edition (2013, p.14)
Another useful trend of the international tourism environment as highlighted in

UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2013 Edition (2013, pp.3-5) is that most tourists travel
by air and for leisure purposes. The following Figures 6, 7 represent the former
mentioned trends.
Figure 6: Inbound tourism by mode of transport, 2012
27
Figure 7: Inbound tourism by purpose of visit, 2012
2.2. NATIONAL TOURISM ENVIRONMENT
Tourism in Greece is a basic economic sector. According to SETE 2012 Facts and
Figures (2013, p.3), Greek tourism contribution in the national GDP is 16.4% and its
contribution in employment is 18.3%. Although because of the political instability
and the political unwillingness for professional national marketing planning, Greek
visitation faced a big decline in recent years, the figures for 2013 are really
encouraging. This is mainly because of the instability in neighbor competitors
(Turkey, Egypt, and Tunis) and the decline of prices due to decline in domestic
demand.
As mentioned in the same study Thessaloniki’s airport Macedonia is fourth in

international arrival for the year 2012 behind Athens, Heraklion and Rhodes. Another
crucial trend of Greek tourism for the year 2012 is that 65, 81% of international
tourism receipts are generated from independent travelers and the rest 34, 19 from
packaged tours.
28
Figure 8: International Receipts from independent travelers and packaged tours 2012
The following graph (Figure 9) represents the main source markets of Greek Tourism
with traditional countries as Germany and the UK holding almost 30% and the
emerging, as source country, Russian Federation to account almost 9, 5%. France,
Italy and USA follows.
Figure 9: Breakdown of international receipts by country of origin, 2012
Source: SETE
In conclusion, although Thessaloniki is not the typical sea&sun Greek destination, is

the second biggest city of a country that is totally connected with tourism. Source
markets are there to be explored and the bet is to take advantage of the huge visitation
of the country even in decline periods. Moreover the special trend of non-packaged
visitation is a positive factor regarding development of city break tourism.
29
2.3. CITY LEVEL MACRO ENVIRONMENT – PESTEL ANALYSIS
Except of the tourism macro environment, Thessaloniki is the second large city of
Greece. Since 2009 Greece is the center of the Eurozone debt crisis. In those terms the
political environment is turbulent with continuous elections and a period of riots and
demonstrations. Fortunately the last months the political climate although in tension
seems to be calmer and Greece is not any more the center of negative broadcasting.
In economic terms Greece is facing the worst economic crisis since WWII.
Unemployment rates have reached 30% of the population and decline in citizen’s
income is unique for a European country. Because of decline in demand prices have
decline too (even if the decline rate has not followed the decline rate of incomes). In
those terms tourism can offer a possible opportunity for the country taking into
account that low prices may create increase in demand creating a competitive
advantage for the country in the region. Thus social aspects of this crisis period are
inevitable for the country and the city of Thessaloniki too. Huge unemployment has
created difficult living conditions for a big proportion of the population. Fortunately
until now especially for the city of Thessaloniki this is not a drawback for tourism
development. Technological aspects follow the European path with Greece being a
mature country in technological infrastructure and services.
Environment is a special issue of Thessaloniki’s macro environment. This is mainly

because the city located among rare natural resources protected by NATURA 2000
scheme. Beside that little attention has be given to the city’s environmental
conditions. Thus Thessaloniki used to be a champion in environmental position
especially regarding particles in the atmosphere. Nowadays the problem has declined
mainly because of the decline in traffic due to economic crisis.
30
3. Thessaloniki, Greece as tourism destination – Micro environment analysis
3.1. ORGANIZATIONAL PRESENT SITUATION
Thessaloniki’s present situation in organizational destination management terms is

really amateur. Before 2006 all issues connected with the management of the city as
tourism destination was on a Prefecture of Thessaloniki’s special office hands.
Actually, there was no action taken and the city was operating as tourism destination
in the “auto-pilot” mode. In 2007 a DMO called Thessaloniki Tourism Organization
and Marketing (TTOM) was introduced. The ambitious plan of the initiation of the
DMO was to increase visitation in the city up to 100% until 2013. The initial strategic
plan of the DMO was conducted after its introduction and anticipated the commitment
of all tourism stakeholders of the city to the governing board (Municipality of
Thessaloniki, prefecture of Thessaloniki, Hotelier’s chamber, tourist agents etc). The
first action plans were the participation of the DMO to tourism exhibitions worldwide
and focus on business and conventional tourism but also city break travel.
Although the initial master plan described really ambitious targets, the TTOM was not
actually operating until 2009 when the initiatives of the newly elected municipality
authority rebirth the organization’s actions. The new governing board of the TTOM
consisted of almost all the stakeholders connected to tourism industry and the Mayor
himself became the president of the DMO. The operational part was left to an
executive director but still the DMO lacked of sufficient budget and staff. The
outcome of this rebirth was a new marketing plan and a new logo-brand of the city
that until then was the former ottoman prison called White Tower. The new logo
called “Thessaloniki: Many stories, one heart” tried to describe the multinational
sense of the history of the city and invest in this flair. This logo is still the branding
image of the city, although it was not treated as a successful one both from
conservatives that demanded of the presence of the old symbol of White Tower but
from the majority of citizens and tourism professionals also.
Figure 10: “Thessaloniki: Many stories, one heart” logo
31
Thessaloniki’s DMO never actually operated in European standards. Lack of
willingness of stakeholders to sincerely participate in behalf of a common target did
not let the organization accomplish its targets. Political interventions and a culture of
protection of every stakeholder’s own sector interests led to the resign of the general
manager of the DMO and the recycle of the governing board in 2013. As a result no
major market or other studies have been conducted for the development of
Thessaloniki at any level. Instead every individual stakeholder makes its own
procurement to extend its own interests from tourism in the city.
3.2. PERFORMANCE OF THESSALONIKI AS TOURISM DESTINATION –

RECENT STUDIES AND DATA ANALYSIS
 3.2.1 SOURCE COUNTRIES
As mentioned above there are almost no studies regarding visitation of Thessaloniki

except of the data the Greek statistics authority (ELSTAT) acquires in collaboration
with the Bank of Greece or airport, port and borders authorities.
Especially for the years 2010-2013 there is sufficient data acquisition from the
Thessaloniki Hotels Association regarding nationalities of overnights in
Thessaloniki’s hotels. No other Greek authority (ELSTAT, Airport Makedonia
authorities, SETE) published or conducted any studies regarding the nationality of
inbound tourism of the city. Moreover Thessaloniki hotels association data are more
accurate due to the fact that the airport of Thessaloniki is the main terminal station for
Chalkidiki peninsula tourists.
The following Table 1 and figure 10 represents the top nationalities of overnights in
hotels of Thessaloniki for the years 2011 and 2012, the ranking of every nationality
and the percentage of increase or decline compared to 2010 and 2011 respectively.
32
Table 1: International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan-Dec) 2010-2012
International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Dec)

Rank Country/Year 2011 % ↑/↓ (%) Rank 2012 % ↑/↓ (%)
Greece 946336 59.04 N/A 836803 51.28 -11.57
1 Israel 59064 3,68 335.86 7 39387 2.41 -33.31
2 Cyprus 56770 3,54 N/A 2 71799 4,4 26.47
3 Italy 47015 2,93 32.35 5 43321 2.65 -7.86
4 USA 42168 2,63 51.98 6 40278 2.47 -4.48
5 Russia 39486 2,46 62.83 3 59248 3.63 50.05
6 Turkey 36629 2,29 36.41 4 46790 2,87 27.74
7 Germany 36478 2,28 N/A 9 34569 2.12 -5.23
8 Bulgaria 33763 2,11 12.63 8 36283 2.22 7.46
9 Serbia 32723 2,04 18.91 10 27612 1.69 -15.62
10 Albania 29744 1,86 64.38 13 20652 1.27 -30.57
11 Romania 26265 1.64 N/A 11 25428 1,56 -3.19
12 UK 22680 1.41 N/A 12 22419 1.37 -1.15
13 Libya 19261 1,20 22296.51 1 146937 9.00 662.87
14 France 18736 1.17 N/A 14 19746 1.21 5.39
15 Poland 12298 0.77 N/A 20 7881 0.48 -35.92
16 FYROM 11594 0.72 N/A 15 13272 0.81 14.47
17 Spain 10211 0.64 N/A 16 10813 0.66 5.90
18 Australia 9363 0.58 N/A 18 10334 0.63 10.37
19 Holland 8543 0.53 N/A 19 8315 0.51 -2.67
23 Ukraine 5723 0.36 N/A 17 10529 0.65 83.98
Source: Research based on data of Thessaloniki Hotels Association data (2011-2013)
33
Figure 10: International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan – Dec) 2011-2012
International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Dec) 2011-

2012
0 500000 1000000 1500000 2000000
Greece
Israel
Cyprus
Italy
USA
Russia
Turkey
Germany
Bulgaria
Serbia 2011
Albania 2012
Romania
UK
Libya
France
Poland
FYROM
Spain
Australia
Holland
Ukraine
34
Using the same pattern , because of the fact that at the time of the research THA had
announced only statistics of Jan-Jun of 2013 the following Table 2 and graph (Figure
11) represents the evolution of nationalities of incoming tourists for the first half of
the year of each year from 2011 – 2013. Obviously results on half of a year which
regarded off-season are not secure but surely represent a tension especially for 2013.
Table 2: International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Jun), 2011-2013
International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Jun)

Rank Country/Year 2011 % ↑/↓ (%) Rank 2012 % ↑/↓ (%) Rank 2013 % ↑/↓
Greece 491974 N/A 424551 51.59 -15.88 452848 57.62 6.67
1 Israel 30039 3.90 N/A 7 15992 1.94 -48.35 4 26854 3.42 67.92
2 Cyprus 27237 3.53 N/A 2 28969 3.52 5.49 2 31765 4.04 9.65
3 Italy 20772 2.69 N/A 4 20396 2.48 -1.81 5 19562 2.49 -4.09
4 Bulgaria 18066 2.34 N/A 8 15254 1.85 -15.56 6 18285 2.33 19.87
5 Albania 17658 2.29 N/A 12 10774 1,31 -38.98 12 10651 1.36 -1.14
6 Turkey 16829 2.18 N/A 5 19025 2,87 13 3 28556 3.63 50.10
7 Germany 16783 2.18 N/A 7 16112 1.96 -0.04 7 16404 2.09 1.81
8 Russia 15323 1.99 N/A 3 22007 2.67 43,62 1 35698 4.54 62.21
9 USA 13690 1.78 N/A 9 13356 1.62 -2.44 8 14805 1.88 10.85
10 Albania 17658 2.29 N/A 10 10774 1.31 -38.99 12 10651 1.36 -1.14
83 Libya 13 0.00 N/A 1 131143 15.93 11 11324 1.44 -91.37
12 UK 10666 1.38 N/A 13 9693 1.18 -9.12 13 10170 1.29 4.92
13 France 7279 0.94 N/A 14 8579 1.04 17.86 14 8991 1.14 4.80
14 Poland 4095 0.53 N/A 21 2978 0.36 -27.27 18 4057 0.52 36.23
15 FYROM 4805 0.62 N/A 15 5490 0.48 14.02 15 6018 0.77 9.62
16 Spain 4571 0.59 N/A 16 4266 0.52 -7.15 20 3186 0.41 -25.32
17 Australia 2675 0.34 N/A 20 3218 0.39 20.30 17 4371 0.56 35.83
18 Holland 4187 0.54 N/A 17 3512 0.43 -16.12 19 3962 0.5 12.81
19 Ukraine 1997 0.26 N/A 22 2943 0.36 47.37 16 5474 0.7 86.00
35
Figure 11: International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Jun) 2011-2013
0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000 1200000 1400000
Greece
Israel
Cyprus
Italy
Bulgaria
Albania
Turkey
Germany
Russia
2011
USA
2012
Albania
2013
Libya
UK
France
Poland
FYROM
Spain
Australia
Holland
Ukraine
The following figure (Figure 12) represents the evolution for overnights of each
nationality for the first half of the years of 2011, 2012, 2013 respectively. The inner
circle represents 2011 results while the external circle represents results of 2013. It
has to be noted that overnights of Libyans are excluded from the following graph
because occurred after Greek democracy offered to hospital some refuges of the civil
war. Thus if taken into account change completely and in a wrong direction the
proportions of the rest nationalities.
36
Figure 12: Evolution of nationalities for international overnights (Jan-Jun) 2011-2013
International overnights in Thessaloniki

(Jan - Jun) 2011-2013 (excl.Libya)
UKR
AUS NL ISR
ES 2% 2%
FYROM1% 2% 11%
PL 2% AUS NL UKR ISR
2% ES 1%
FR FYROM2% 2% 2% 8%
4% PL 3% UKR
ESAUSNL
FR 1% FYROM 2%1% ISR
UK PL 2%1% 14%
4% 2% CY CY
4% FR 2%
3% 14% 13%
UK
UK
5%
5%
USA
CY
6% USA 13%
USA 6%
7%
RUS IT
10% IT
7% 8%
IT
10%
RUS
RUS GER
11%
14% 8%
BUL BUL
TK 8% 8% BUL
8% AL
8% 7%
GER AL
8% 5%
TK
AL
GER 9%
4%
7%
TK
11%
37
Finally in Figure 13 is represented the proportions of nationalities for overnights in
Thessaloniki for the year 2012 which is the most indicative year of all the available.
Again Libyans are excluded for the reasons mentioned in Figure 12.
Figure 13: International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan-Dec) 2012 (exc.Libya)
International overnights in Thessaloniki

(Jan - Dec) 2012 (excl.Libya)
Ukraine
Poland FYROM Australia Holland
2% Spain 2% 2%
1% 2%
2%
Israel
France 7%
4%
UK Cyprus
4% 13%
Romania
5%
Italy
Albania 8%
4%
Serbia
5% USA
7%
Bulgaria
7%
Russia
11%
Turkey
9%
Germany
6%
38
3.2.2 CONCLUSIONS ON SOURCE COUNTRIES RESEARCH
Taking into account the available data of international overnights in Thessaloniki’s

hotels from 2010 until Jun of 2013 we can assume that the city is averagely
accommodating 1,500,000 overnights per year.
60% in 2011 and the 51.28% in 2012 of them are Greeks. This is a traditional tension
in tourism development of Thessaloniki. Through times city’s visitation and evolution
of hotel industry was actually dependent to Greek tourists. Except of the lack of
strategic development planning, this is mainly the reason behind the amateurish
tourism development of the city. Tourism professionals secured adequate results
based on Greeks. Thus when debt crisis affected visitation of Greeks due to decline of
their income, Thessaloniki’s tourism could not easily differentiate its product in order
to attend new source markets. Thessaloniki lost more than 10% of its tourism demand
in less than 3 years without any substitute option available.
In international terms the case of Thessaloniki is clearer. Until 2010 the source of the
majority of incoming tourism according to older studies was Germany, UK and the
Balkans. Most of tourists visiting the city were attracted by its orthodox religious
legacy (Balkan countries) or made a stop-over before their way to Chalkidiki beaches
(Germany, UK). Few decades before when the city was a modern business and
exhibition center foreign visitors attracted from the city for business reasons too.
From 2010 and afterwards, mainly due to individual initiatives from the new
municipality authorities and the private sector, the international visitation of
Thessaloniki is consolidated to the following status that figure 14 represents.
Figure 14: International overnights in Thessaloniki Jan-Jun 2013 (excl.Libya)
International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Jun) 2013

(excl.Libya)
FYROM Australia
2% Spain Holland Ukraine
2% 2% 2%
France Poland 1%
4% 2% Israel
UK
4% 11%
Cyprus
Albania
13%
4%
USA
Italy
6%
8%
Russia Bulgaria
14% 7%
Germany Turkey
7% 11%
39
This set of data was chosen, although are just indicative due to the fact that are only
representing results of first half of the year of 2013, mainly because is really
representing the present situation. Proof of this can be easily found in Figure 12 too.
International inbound tourism of Thessaloniki is mainly consisting 6 main national

groups:
1. Israel 4. Cyprus
2. Turkey 5. Balkan countries
3. Russia 6. Western European countries
The three first source countries (Israel, Turkey and Russia) are those that have grown
intensively as source markets of the city.
Israelis are accounting 7-14% of the total international inbound tourism of the city for
the period 2011-2013 following an exponential growth of 336% from 2010 to 2011. A
balanced visitation of 2012 is now followed by a new rise of 68% for the first half of
2013 compared to same half of 2012. Obviously the market of Israel can be a basic
and high income market of Thessaloniki. This is mainly due to historical reasons as
Israelis consider Thessaloniki as the second Jerusalem. The strong Jewish legacy of
the city, although almost ruined for several reasons, can be a key incentive for
visitation both in emotional and actual attractions terms. Thus the previously
unexploited Israel market can be an important source market for the city. A perquisite
for this is the development of special packages and routes that will serve this special
market segment.
Turks are following the same pattern. Although history of the city is deeply connected
with Ottoman and modern Turkish history, political reasons and tensions between the
two countries left this market unexploited. Citizens coming from Turkey accounted 8-
11% of the total international inbound tourism of the city (2011-2013). An increase of
37% in 2011 visitation compared to 2010 and a further increase of 28% in 2012
proves that source market of Turkey has the potential to increase more its share in the
following years. This is also proven by the fact that in the first half of the year 2013
visitation of Turks has increased a further 50% compared to the same time period in
2012. The introduction of a direct flight between Thessaloniki and Istanbul was a key
factor also. Turkey being an emerging market in international terms can perform as
key source market for Thessaloniki. This is because of the rich legacy of the city in
ottoman architecture and ruins but also because of the presence of the house where the
modern founder of the Turkish democracy Kemal Attaturk was actually born. Kemal
Attaturk as a modern leader is treated with full respect of Turkish citizens. Thus the
recently opened museum of Kemal in the building where his first house was can serve
as a great attraction for Turkish tourists. Finally Turkey as an emerging market will,
according to UNWTO, be an emerging source market for international tourism too,
both in receipts and absolute tourist numbers. If the city make steps towards
40
organizing special packages and routes for this particular market segment has the
potential of being a major economic contributor to city’s visitation.
A traditional segment of international tourism of Thessaloniki, despite the long

distance, is Russia. Mainly due to the Christian orthodox heritage, Thessaloniki was
always attracting visitation from Russian Federation. Nevertheless the type of
visitation was a mix of pre-visit to Mount Athos or Chalkidiki. For the time period of
the research Russians accounted 7-14% of the total international tourism of the city.
An increase of 63% in visitation 2011 compared to 2010 and a further increase of
50% in 2012 creates an extraordinary growth potential proved by a promising further
62% increase for the first half of 2013. That brings Russia to No1 source country of
Thessaloniki’s inbound tourism. Note at this point that summer months which
traditionally are attracting Russians are not included to 2013 results.
This huge increase is mainly because of two parameters. As UNWTO states in its
2013 Tourism highlights (2013, p.13), Russian Federation is the fifth top spender in
international tourism expenditure accounting a 37% growth. Moreover the initiation
of charter and scheduled flights directly from Russia to Thessaloniki created this
phenomenon. A further increase in visitation is achievable again if the city prepare
itself in order to create special products and packages that will make this valuable
market segment feel welcome and thus create increased visitation via word of mouth
or more professional promotion ways.
We can assume that those three source markets is a first set of countries that can be
treated as one due to the fact that the today’s emerging destinations which if exploited
properly can tomorrow be the leaders of the city’s visitation. Together they represent
less than the half (≈40%) of international tourism of Thessaloniki.
The next group of countries is the region of Balkans. Bulgaria, Serbia, FYROM,
Romania and Albania are a steady and traditional part of Thessaloniki’s international
tourism. Due to proximity to the city citizens of Balkan countries are a safe source
market of the city. Especially Bulgaria which now is an EU-27 member accounts a
bigger proportion of the total visitation, followed by Serbia. Highways are the basic
mode of transfer for those countries but if a more sufficient way of travel could be
established (train or regional flights) could increase visitation especially in the city-
break mode.
Western European countries citizens are a considerable proportion of Thessaloniki’s

international tourism but reaching steady numbers of visitation. During the last three
years tourists from mainly Germany, Italy, UK and France accounted almost a quarter
(≈24%) of total visitation. Although this is a big proportion, the absolute numbers are
relatively small. Western Europeans accounts almost the half of international travel.
Thus for Thessaloniki not to attract frequent travelers, as Europeans, is a major
drawback that needs an immediate solution.
41
Low cost air travel carriers, as previously mentioned, have created new markets for
emerging destinations in Europe. Thessaloniki was not excluded of this trend. Major
low cost carriers such as Easyjet, Ryanair, Germanwings, Travelservices and more
took advantage of the low airport fares of Makedonia airport and introduced several
routes connecting Thessaloniki with western European cities, mostly in the summer
period. Especially Ryanair came into a controversial agreement with TTOM in order
to open a base in Thessaloniki in summer of 2011 while a major proportion of
TTOM’s budget would be paid in the company. As data show this strategy, although
new routes to new source countries open, did not respond the expected results.
Visitation from those markets was steady and all the traffic was mainly diverted to
Chalkidiki peninsula in the summer period and partly to outbound tourism of the city.
Moreover conventional carriers that used to operate in Makedonia airport forced to
leave as a result of price war from those carriers. In conclusion western European
countries are yet an unexploited source market for Thessaloniki. Investment in
creating new routes to those markets is a solution but only if the product proposition
of the city exists. Thus the priority is to create a product proposition first and then to
create the routes for the source markets to come.
Finally a special proportion of the city’s international tourism is Cypriots. Cypriots

are mainly act as VFR tourism due to the fact that in Thessaloniki exists a numerous
community of young Cypriots studying in Greek universities. Except this the
existence of many different air routes from Cyprus offers the opportunity for the city
to propose a city break product that would fit Cypriots needs too. Timing for such
exploitation may be bad though, due to Cyprus bank crisis in this period of time.
The following figure represents graphically the major groups of source markets as
analyzed above.
Figure 15: Major groups of Thessaloniki international tourism source markets
42
 3.2.3. PRESENT TYPES OF TOURISM
As mentioned above the lack of research and data regarding Thessaloniki’s tourism
development is a fact. Thus there is no strong evidence regarding the type of tourism
the city attracts. The only source of information is a study conducted of gbr consulting
company behalf of the Thessaloniki hotels association published in May 2012. The
research was conducted through a sample of 800 guests of different hotels in
Thessaloniki with the qualitative method of questionnaires in the timeframe of
12/2011-02/2012.
The main findings of the survey regarding the type of the city’s visitors are:
 65% were Greeks

 45% of the sample has visited Thessaloniki for business reasons, while 40%
for leisure and 13% for VFR (visit of friends and relatives). The remaining
proportion’s travel reason was visiting conventions and trade fairs.
 39% of the sample made the booking of hotel online. The same proportion was
35% in 2011 and 29% in 2010.
 24% of hotels participating in the survey do not have a website and 60% a
facebook page.
 42.1% used air travel to arrive in Thessaloniki, 37.2% car and only 5.8% train
services.
 88.8% declares that would return or suggest Thessaloniki to friends and
relatives.
What this survey actually brings into the surface is the potential of Thessaloniki as
business travel destination. As mentioned to the preface Thessaloniki owns a huge
trade fair installation and a diverse quantity of small, medium and a pair of large
conference spaces. This fact creates an extra unexploited opportunity for the city to
develop a conventional face. With an international airport located close to the city and
almost half of its hotels capacity in 4* and 5* rooms, Thessaloniki can offer a unique
experience for convention and conference organizers (MICE travel).
Nevertheless ICCA official reports, ranks Thessaloniki in 124th place of the world
rankings and in No.65 place of European cities ranking with just 19 events in 2012.
Obviously this is a poor performance regarding the city’s amenities. Conventional and
conference tourism can offer unique chances in city’s tourism development and is
actually another unexploited field.
The survey also proves the big proportion of Greek tourists in the overall results
combined with the evolution of the trend of use of Internet and IT for booking. This is
also a crucial factor for development of city break tourism.
43
Finally repeated visitation declaration is strong but the business travel bias of the
survey should always taken into account.
 3.2.4.CRUISES
Although Thessaloniki is the home city of one of the biggest ports in the
Mediterranean Sea, cruise tourism is only recently discovered. Poor facilities, strong
protectionism measures and political unwillingness led Thessaloniki’s port out of big
cruise company’s itineraries.
According to Port Authorities of Thessaloniki 2013 will be a restart year for cruise
tourism with the initiation of a weekly route of at least one cruise ship for summer
2013.
Nevertheless it remains another unexploited field of tourism that could add in

international visitation of the city if properly managed.
44
4. SWOT analysis of Thessaloniki, Greece as a tourism destination
In order to present the broader image of Thessaloniki as a tourism destination that

would lead to certain travel propositions (especially in the city break travel field) a
SWOT analysis is essential.
SWOT is the acronym of the analysis of the strengths, the weaknesses, the
opportunities and the threats of a destination. In this chapter the above characteristics
will be presented in brief and a reprehensive matrix will follow.
 STRENGTHS
 Rich, diverse and multinational cultural and religious heritage of
Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern history periods
 15 World Heritage Monuments of UNESCO
 6km of totally renovated walkable waterfront (Thessaloniki
Riviera)
 International airport located close to the city center and modern 4*
- 5* accommodation facilities
 Easy but outdated transportation system
 Crossroad of major highways (PATHE, Egnatia)
 Close to unique historical heritage attraction sites (Vergina tombs,
Dion, Olympus mountain) religious sites (Mount Athos) and
famous beaches (Chalkidiki peninsula)
 Youth spirit - active city – City of festivals (3 universities)
 Top class medical installations
 Adequate conference and convention centers
 Hospitality spirit of citizens
 Creative areas
 WEAKNESSES
 Absence of collaboration culture between tourism industry
stakeholders, leadership and strategic approach
 Non-operational and low-budgeted DMO
 Marketing strategies – IT, website, internet presence
 Absence of equipped personnel
 Lack of information points
 Product propositions-organized packages-routes
 Outdated 2*-3* accommodation facilities
 Pollution of environment
 Unknown destination to majority of target markets
 Museums and heritage sites opening hours
 Few routes of airlines in winter period
 Lack of cruise ship incentives for visitation
45
 OPPORTUNITIES
 Projections of strong increase of visitation in the region
 New development of tourism product is strategic approach applied
 Emerging source markets
 Investment in emerging economies source markets
 Low prices
 Unexploited cruise ships visitation
 Youth European Capital 2014
 Instability in middle East and Northern Africa
 THREATS
 Competitors evolution in the area
 Political unwillingness for strategic tourism development
 European and domestic economic crisis
 Insufficient airline scheduled flights
46
Figure 17: SWOT analysis matrix
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 Rich, diverse and  Absence of collaboration
multinational cultural and culture between tourism
religious heritage of industry stakeholders,
Roman, Byzantine, leadership and strategic
Ottoman, and modern approach
history periods  Non-operational and low-
 15 World Heritage budgeted DMO
Monuments of UNESCO  Marketing strategies – IT,
 6km of totally renovated website, internet presence
walkable waterfront  Absence of equipped
(Thessaloniki Riviera) personnel
 International airport and  Lack of information points
modern 4* - 5*  Product propositions-
accommodation facilities organized packages-routes
 Easy but outdated  Outdated 2*-3*
transportation system accommodation facilities
 Crossroad of major  Pollution of environment
highways (PATHE,  Unknown destination to
Egnatia) majority of target markets
 Close to unique historical  Museums and heritage sites
heritage attraction sites opening hours
(Vergina tombs, Dion,  Few routes of airlines in
Olympus mountain) winter period
religious sites (Mount  Lack of cruise ship
Athos) and famous beaches incentives for visitation
(Chalkidiki peninsula)
 Youth spirit - active city –
festival city (3 universities)
 Top class medical
installations
 Adequate conference and
convention centers
 Hospitality spirit of citizens
 Creative areas
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
 Projections of strong  Competitors evolution in
increase of visitation in the the area
region  Political unwillingness for
 New development of strategic tourism
tourism product is strategic development
approach applied  European and domestic
 Emerging source markets economic crisis
 Investment in emerging  Insufficient airline
economies source markets scheduled flights
 Low prices
 Unexploited cruise ships
visitation
 Youth European Capital
2014
 Instability in middle East
and Northern Africa
47
5. CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSITION OF STRATEGIES
Thessaloniki has all the potential to become a tourism destination success story. On
the other hand, as SWOT analysis indicates, the city is a good example of amateurish
destination governance and political unwillingness to establish a collaborative
strategic approach of tourism development. The absence of a unique coordinating unit
that develops and implements a commonly accepted strategy has obvious negative
effects. Thus, different stakeholders pursue their own agendas which sometimes are
even conflicting.
Thessaloniki, as a destination, needs to reassess operational structure of the local

DMO (TTOM). More specifically city’s tourism industry stakeholders should
provide all available resources to Thessaloniki Tourism Organization and Marketing
in order to perform its strategic role as the coordinator of Thessaloniki’s tourism
development. The main targets of TTOM should be:
- Provide incentives to all of the city’s tourism industry stakeholders for

intensive and committed collaboration.
- Recruitment of specialized personnel.
- Conduct of visitor’s surveys and marketing research.
- Development of a strategic plan based on a clear vision, ambitious goals and
measurable objectives.
- Implementation of strategies.
As mentioned in literature review the basic elements of city break travel are:
Distance, Duration, Discretionary nature, Date flexibility and Destination travel party
(5Ds). The first two are strongly connected to destination choice process made from
city break travelers. Thessaloniki’s main source markets are close enough to satisfy
the “Distance” factor of a city break destination (less than 3 hours flight). Moreover
Thessaloniki is easily accessible, the city’s main attractions are located close to each
other and the possible excursion sites do not demand more than 1,5 hour drive. Thus a
complete product proposition of the city would need a maximum of 4 days/3 nights
itinerary. In those terms “Duration” aspect of city break travel is covered too. In
conclusion Thessaloniki fits perfect the “5Ds” model of city break travel.
Moreover Thessaloniki can provide leisure of all possible kinds for a city break
traveler. Cultural, religious, youth, sea&sun, creative, sports or even medical city
break travelers can find a suitable attraction or service.
Except leisure city break travel, Thessaloniki can benefit also of investing in
convention and conference city break travel. In order to exploit this opportunity the
city must found a convention bureau as part of the DMO’s processes. This specialized
authority should promote city’s capabilities of hosting conferences and conventions in
order to create demand in the MICE sector too.
Hosting more than 100,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, a pair of

international film events (Thessaloniki International Film festival and Thessaloniki
48
international Documentary festival) and an active nightlife scene, Thessaloniki can
strongly benefit of this creative and youthful ambience. According to a recent
UNWTO study, by 2020 there will be almost 300 million youth international
travelers. Thus a city that has already the resources of responding to this demand
should invest more in this field of development. Low cost carriers and low overnights
prices of city’s hotels can be of great advantage in this context. Moreover in 2014
Thessaloniki will be the European Youth capital. This is a crucial bet for the city if
youth tourism is to be considered.
Finally Thessaloniki is in deep need of a new landmark. An image that will be able
to represent both city’s turbulent history as a mosaic of civilizations and emotions but
also its modern present as a developing European city. Thessaloniki’s 6km of
completely renovated and walkable waterfront from Opera house until the port area
can offer a unique landmark-Riviera in the region (Thessaloniki Riviera). This unique
urban space can become a creative, youth but also recreational zone connecting the
city with the sea element. Same areas have helped European destinations rise offering
a relaxing product proposition. (e.g., Port Olympic and Barceloneta zones in
Barcelona, Valencia waterfront zone and Marseille waterfront area). This image can
be completed if the projects of light sea transportation routes come also into reality.
STRATEGIES
In order to develop as a city break destination Thessaloniki has to invest in the three
groups of source markets.
Most attention must be given to emerging source markets Russia, Israel and Turkey.
In order to achieve increased visitation from those destinations there is a need of an
individual, for each country, marketing strategy. Product proposition for Russians,
Israelis and Turks have to be offered from the DMO connecting the city with the
special emotions that the city generates to those national groups. Specially routes
officially designed by the city’s DMO need to be offered in order visitors get
emotionally attached and thus become ambassadors of Thessaloniki back home. Each
of those three national groups represents an emerging high income tourism market
that until now Thessaloniki has not exploited enough.
Next is the mature market of Western European travelers. The steady development
figures presented previously indicate that those travelers are visiting Thessaloniki
either from personal interest, low cost flights routes presence or as a stop before
leisure holidays in Chalkidiki. Most of Europeans don’t know the city of
Thessaloniki. Thus lot of attention has to be made in conducting special commercial
campaigning using branding and marketing tools. Low cost carriers is a great initial
incentive for cheap city break travel, but if the product proposition of the city does not
exist the competitor destination with a complete product proposition waits around the
corner.
49
Finally Balkan countries are the last but not least target market. Those populations are
aware of Thessaloniki. That means that the strategy for this specific market segment is
completely different. The proposition of an easier transportation mode in
collaboration with local train authorities and regional air carriers can increase city
break visitation because the barrier of transportation via road will not exist anymore.
In combination to those segments, as mentioned above, strategies need to be

implemented regarding youth tourism and cruise tourism. Thessaloniki is well known
for its festivals and events organization. International Film Festival and International
Documentary Festival are just two of those that can attract special market segments
and especially youth. The main problem is that they’re not promoted broadly and the
experience created out of that is not used for organization of same events in other
culture forms. Thessaloniki as a festival and events city can attract young travelers if
manage to organize medium/large scale events of this segment’s interest.
Next figure (Figure 18) represents the pyramid of the proposed strategies portfolio
along with market segments mentioned
Figure 18: The pyramid of strategies portfolio of Thessaloniki, Greece destination

development as a city break destination
MICE -
Cruises
Youth travel
Balkan countries source

markets (Bulgaria - Serbia)
Western European source markets

(Germany - Italy - UK - France)
Emerging source markets (Russia - Turkey -

Israel)
THESSALONIKI CITY BREAK TRAVEL STRATEGIES
PORTFOLIO
50
In conclusion, there are many opportunities for the city to explore in order to improve
its tourism performance. This report has attempted to connect this opportunity for
success with the city break mode of travel. Thessaloniki’s profile fits with what city
travelers demand for such a destination, whether they travel for leisure or for
business. Development of specialized products for targeted market segments of this
travel mode would probably attract an adequate market share. Building a strong brand
and a competitive product proposition can be the next step.
The present situation though seems more than an “auto-pilot” mode where city’s
tourism development is not driven by a strategically coordinating organization but by
individual stakeholder’s intentions and special interests. Change of this problematic
perception of tourism development is the first step towards Thessaloniki’s success as
a tourism destination.
51
6. REFERENCES
1. Asworthy, G., & Page, S. (2010). Urban Tourism research: Recent progress
and current paradoxes, Tourism Management (pp.1-15)
2. Dobruszkes, F. (2013) The geography of European low cost airline networks:
a contemporary analysis, Journal of Transport geography 28 75-88
3. Dunne, G., Flanagan S (2006), Dublin visitor survey visitor satisfaction and
attitudual analysis 2003.
4. Dunne, G., Flanagan S., Buckley, J. (2010). Towards a decision making
model for city break travel, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and
hospitality research Vol.5(2) pp.158-172
5. Dunne, G., Flanagan S., Buckley, J. (2010). Towards an understanding of
international city break travel, International Journal of Tourism research 12
409-417
6. Edwards, D., Griffin, T, & Hayllar B. (2008). Urban tourism research:
developing an agenda, Annals of Tourism research 35(4), 1032-1052
7. European Travel Comission (2013), Trends and prospects Q2/2013 report
8. Freitag R. 2006. Using Market Intelligence in the Commercial World.
Presented at 2nd executive summit of the European Travel Commission -
Symposium on market intelligence, Malta, October 4, 2006. Retrieved March
28, 2008
9. Mordue, T. (2007) Testing governance – a research agenda for exploring
urban tourism competitiveness policy: the case of Liverpool 1980-2000,
leisure Studies 26(4) 447-462
10. Trew J, Cockerell N. 2002. The European market for UK city breaks. Insights
14(58):85-111.
11. Trinity Research. 1989. The UK Short Break Holiday Market. Trinity
Research.
12. UNWTO (2012) A practical guide to tourism destination management
13. UNWTO (2013) Tourism Highlights 2013
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Development of Thessaloniki Greece As A PDF

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School of Economics and Business Administration

“Development of Thessaloniki, Greece as a City Break

According to IPK International’s European Travel Monitor, European city tourism

1.1 THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF A TOURISM DESTINATION

Destination Management Organizations can operate in a national, regional or even

1.2. DESTINATION LIFE CYCLE

Figure 1: Tourism Area life Cycle

 Exploration. Small numbers of visitors attracted mainly from nearby

Another crucial element of a destination’s development is it’s actors to understand

Figure 2: The Customer Journey

Source: UNWTO (2007), “A practical guide to tourism destination management”, p.19

Figure 3: Strategic destination management steps

Market Research and analysis of

Vision – Goals - Objectives

Monitoring of results and

The second most important part if a proper research is done is implementation.

- Destination marketing (promotional programs, branding)

2.1. URBAN TOURISM CHARACTERSTICS

 Urban tourism is an extremely important, world-wide form of tourism.

To secure better assumptions on urban tourism development a tourist perspective of

 Selectivity. Tourists tend to use limited proportion of space and services

Although literature in city break travel phenomenon is relatively poor, Dunne,

 “Duration”. The major distinctive characteristic of city break travel is the

 “Discretionary nature”. As mentioned to other previous chapters too, city

 “Date flexibility”. A distinctive characteristic of city break travel is the

 “Destination travel party”. According to several studies (Flanagan and

2.3. DECISION MAKING MODEL FOR CITY BREAK TRAVEL

Figure 4 represents graphically this model.

 Internal variables: motivation, personality, perceived image, lifestyle

1.1 GENERAL AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF THESSALONIKI

Founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, Thessaloniki's history spans some

1.2. CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL HERITAGE ASSETS

As described roughly, Thessaloniki has a unique history background of more than

Moreover, as mentioned above, due to the presence of a long run of different

From the tourism development perspective it is obvious that Thessaloniki is extremely

1.3. RELIGIOUS SITES AND ASSETS

Thessaloniki except of a brilliant mosaic of different civilizations through history is

Thessaloniki is nowadays home to unique early Christian and byzantine monuments 9

Infrastructure of Thessaloniki’s hotels combined with the experience of international

1.5. YOUTH – LEISURE&RECREATION AND MEDICAL ASSETS

Thessaloniki’s greater modern landmark is its totally renovated waterfront area. By

2.1. INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL MACRO ENVIRONMENT

Thessaloniki, as mentioned above, is located 520km north of Athens. Thus the

According to UNWTO “Tourism Towards 2030” (UNWTO, 2011) the number of

The following figure 5 presents the international forecast as presented by UNWTO.

Source: UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2013 Edition (2013, p.14)

Another useful trend of the international tourism environment as highlighted in

Figure 6: Inbound tourism by mode of transport, 2012

2.2. NATIONAL TOURISM ENVIRONMENT

As mentioned in the same study Thessaloniki’s airport Macedonia is fourth in

Figure 9: Breakdown of international receipts by country of origin, 2012

In conclusion, although Thessaloniki is not the typical sea&sun Greek destination, is

Environment is a special issue of Thessaloniki’s macro environment. This is mainly

3.1. ORGANIZATIONAL PRESENT SITUATION

Thessaloniki’s present situation in organizational destination management terms is

Figure 10: “Thessaloniki: Many stories, one heart” logo

3.2. PERFORMANCE OF THESSALONIKI AS TOURISM DESTINATION –

 3.2.1 SOURCE COUNTRIES

As mentioned above there are almost no studies regarding visitation of Thessaloniki

International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Dec)

Source: Research based on data of Thessaloniki Hotels Association data (2011-2013)

International overnights in Thessaloniki (Jan - Dec) 2011-

Source: Research based on data of Thessaloniki Hotels Association data (2011-2013)