EVENTS

PHILOXENIA expects a new record-breaking year
PHILOXENIA, the official international tourism exhibition of Greece, is preparing for its 23rd edition to be held between November 1st and November 4th, 2007, at the Thessaloniki International Exhibition Centre. The rapid growth of PHILOXENIA resulted in last year’s record-breaking attendance of 774 exhibitors and over 25,000 visitors from 32 countries. Helexpo, the national trade fair agency of Greece and organiser of PHILOXENIA, is expecting further growth in 2007.
Exhibitors include national and regional tourism organisations from around the globe, hotels, tour operators, travel agencies, airlines, cruise lines, hotel equipment providers and tourism industry media. In addition to the main travel trade fair, PHILOXENIA also comprises two specialist exhibitions, the hotel equipment fair Hotelia by PHILOXENIA and the PHILOXENIA Spa Expo, the country’s first event dedicated to wellness and health tourism. Both exhibitions will be held simultaneously with PHILOXENIA within the same venue.
This year’s PHILOXENIA has a packed programme of parallel events comprising, among others, the PHILOXENIA Spa Congress, the International Symposium on Gastronomy and Wine Tourism and the Forum on Electronic Destination Management and Marketing Systems. The opening gala of the exhibition will include the second edition of the PHILOXENIA Tourism Awards honouring the best of the best of Greek tourism.
PHILOXENIA is further expanding its Hosted Buyers Programme. More than 100 senior travel buyers from throughout the world will attend the exhibition in 2007 and participate in more than 2,000 pre-arranged meetings with exhibitors. Travel professionals interested in attending PHILOXENIA as hosted buyers may visit the PHILOXENIA home page at http://www.philoxenia.travel.
In its 23rd year now, PHILOXENIA is organised by Helexpo in collaboration with the Greek National Tourism Organisation and under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism. On the first two days the exhibition will be open only for travel industry professionals. The public can attend the event on Day 3 and Day 4.