Eureka! Institutional Repository

The significance of the tourism sector for Greece, both at national and local level, cannot be stressed enough. Nevertheless, in recent years public speech in our country is limited to the almost exclusive and often festive display of certain positive indicators such as the number of visitors entering the country - which has been increasing in recent years. This approach is one-sided and restrictive as it deprives the development of an integrated strategy and a better use of the opportunities offered by tourism in many sectors of the economy, as there are negative indices ignored or overlooked, such as the steadily declining consumption per capita in recent years. At the same time, tourism in Greece follows the traditional and largely undifferentiated "Sun and Sea" model, attracting tourists during the summer months as opposed to the rest of the year where traffic is low. As a special form of tourism, alternative tourism offers visitors the opportunity to enjoy unique local distinctiveness, and the opportunity for the Greek tourist product to diversify and reduce the intense seasonality. The prefecture of Xanthi offers Greek and foreign tourists ample opportunities for alternative tourism, such as tours of nature, culture, religion and gastronomy. The main purpose of the present research is to examine the views of the local players in Xanthi on the prospects of alternative tourism in the prefecture, and secondarily to seek ways to make better use of them. As a result, qualitative research, rather than quantitative, was chosen because of its higher comparative ability to distract respondents' perceptions on alternative tourism. Personal interviews were organized with 6 tourist authorities in Xanthi (Municipalities) and 53 local tourist service providers, which included 10 hotels, 19 eating establishments and 24 entertainment centers. The findings of the survey and the review of the literature show that Xanthi operators and businesses generally consider that the prospects of alternative tourism in the county are high, but there is disagreement at to the proposed ways of exploiting these prospects. Moreover, they have shown that the development of alternative tourism in Xanthi is to a certain degree impacted by the well-known chronic problems of the Greek public administration, which is characterized by bureaucracy and political feats. Above all, it requires a strong, organized and holistic national strategic direction for alternative tourism, the harmonization of Regional and Local Policies with this strategy in line with the principles of Total Quality Management, and the efficient use of available national and international funding sources, and of the potential offered by modern scientific marketing and the internet.