Public tourism management. Case study of the greek tourism office in Moscow

In the last decade, Russia has demonstrated a constant growth in its national income resulting in the increase of Russian citizens’ tourism fluxes to foreign countries. As Russian tourists are becoming desirable to the destination places due to their high consumer expenditure, Russia becomes a new source of tourists especially for the countries of the Mediterranean Sea. One of the Mediterranean destination countries of Russian tourists is Greece. Greece’s objective is to attract as many Russian tourists as possible and for this reason is trying to develop GreekRussian relations. Particularly in the tourism sector, Greece is attempting to promote its tourism product in Russia and to convince Russian citizens of its quality and attractiveness. For the achievement of this objective a specific administrative unit, with exclusive competence in the tourism sector, has been founded in Moscow. This unit is being staffed by specialized executives and is supervised by the Greek National Tourism Organization that constitutes the executive tourism agent of the Greek Ministry of Tourism & Culture. This administrative unit is called Office of the GNTO-Greek National Tourism Organization- in Moscow.This article aims to study the structure, organization and function of the Greek tourism office in Moscow, the registration, analysis and evaluation of its activities. Among its objectives is the submission of proposals that will set the appropriate tourism policy, the application of which, by the Office of GNTO in Moscow, will enhance Greece’s competitiveness among the Mediterranean countries and will result in the gain of a bigger share in the Russian tourism market