Selling the City

I have no idea who is selling the city (apart from the real estate agents!) but I think we should be told.

I went to a "Holiday Exhibition" in Helsinki, Finland a few years ago and when I tried to get information about Agios Nikolaos, I was told that the municipality had supplied only 100 information leaflets to an exhibition which attracted 250,000 visitors. The "representative" spoke only Greek and could not communicate with the Finnish people who wanted to visit our town. I am sure he enjoyed his holiday in Helsinki as much as the "representatives" that we are sending out this year are enjoying their holidays.

Interestingly, Rhodos had a huge exhibition with live music and dancers. Xania also had a large prescence.

Do we get statistics for the success of these "trade exhibitions"? How many visitors do we get as a result of sending these people for a 3 day, all expenses paid trip to St. Petersburg, or Frankfurt, Or Beijing?????

I don't know what you think, but I am not seeing many Chinese tourists at the moment.

Or indeed many tourists at all.

If you want to sell to the Germans, French, Italians or the British, you have to do it in their language and have someone who can communicate effectively with them.

Many foreign residents have offered to go (unpaid) to these events in their own countries to assist in bringing visitors to the area. The Municipality have never accepted their help. Perhaps they are worried that if non-employees of the Demos went along, they would see how little work actually gets done. And that would ruin their holiday, wouldn't it?