More than 400,000 people from Bulgaria visited Greece in 2009, especially for tourism reasons, marking a 8,8% decrease over the previous year, official figures show.

“Bulgarians are not very willing to go to far away destinations and in comparison with the decrease in the number of Bulgarians going abroad in 2009, the figures for Greece are quite good, despite the bad criticism and publicity that the country has suffered,” said Leonidas Efthymiou, Director of the Greek National Tourism Organization in an exclusive interview for Novinite.com.

According to Leonidas Efthymiou the current crisis is temporary and is not going to hurt very much every tourism field.

“What we are trying to do is keep the prices and good service unchanged, so that our clients are happy. I believe that the current situation will not change very much the image of Greece,” he said.

The northern part of Greece is the most famous destination for the Bulgarian tourists, not least because it is the closest.

“The Bulgarian is like an internal tourist, like a Greek,” says Leonidas Efthymiou.