ODESA, JULY 12th, 2013, CONTEXT-PRICHERNOMORIE ― In the period from 4 to 9 July, an official Odesa delegation has visited Western Macedonia (Greece) to implement the project “Odesa Goes for a Visit” to attract additional tourist traffic, Context-Prichernomorie correspondent reports.

The Odesa City Council Information office reported today, 12 July.

According to the Office, Odesa delegation was headed by Deputy Mayor Elena Pavlova, who runs the sphere of culture and tourism. Among the members of the delegation were also the Head of Culture and Tourism of the Odesa City Council Tetiana Markova, representatives of tourist companies of the city, such as: “Eugenia Travel Ltd”, “Arcadia Travel”, “Sky Group”, “Plaske Travel”, “Albatross Travel”, “Tartus-Tour” and “Tourist Information Centre in Odesa”.

“Relations between Ukraine and Greece have deep roots and a long history of cooperation of Ukrainian and Greek peoples. The official visit of the Odesa delegation to Greece gave a positive new impetus to bilateral relations,” the Office stressed.

The visit included a meeting with the mayors of the Greek cities in the region of Western Macedonia, as Amyntaio, Ptolemaida, Kastoria, Grevena, Siatista, Kozani and Ayani. The authorities discussed in detail the range of issues related to the further expansion of Ukrainian-Greek relations, particularly in the fields of culture and tourism. They took part in round table discussions devoted to the impact of branding and marketing areas for the development of tourism.

Members of the official delegation met with the head of the tourist office of Western Macedonia Alexandra Liapopoulou, as well as the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) President Andreas Andreadis.

In view of the results of the negotiations, the first Greek group (approximately 30 people), which will include teachers, intellectuals, etc. will visit Odesa 4-9 September.

In August, the tourism office of Western Macedonia will visit our city to study the experience of Odesa in the tourism sector. In addition, the Greek partners will participate in the Third International tourism seminar devoted to branding, marketing territory, as well as the impact of IT-technologies for the development of the tourism industry organized by the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Odesa City Council in conjunction with the Association “Tourism of Odesa”.

In order to attract additional tourist traffic to Odesa in late September ― early October this year it will be a press tour for foreign media representatives, which will be attended by representatives of the Greek media.

An agreement was reached on the readiness of the two Greek print publications (newspaper “Western Macedonia”, the publication “Panorama of Greece”) to publish information about Odesa in Greek language.

During the visit, bilateral meetings of Greek and Odesa tourism companies were held for further cooperation and signing of cooperation agreements in order to attract additional flow of tourists to our country.