Tourism Destination Development, a Situation Analysis of a Greek Region

Tourism is acknowledged to contribute to job and wealth creation, economic growth, environmental protection, and poverty reduction. Therefore, the excellent performance of the tourism sector globally implies the prospects of a significant revenue stream. Tourism beneficial influence is evident in improving the quality of social life, in intercultural understanding and the sustainable development of cities and communities. Tourism success in building sustainable destinations is a contemporary challenge that the globalization, technology, innovation, climate, and demographic change produced. Well-Balanced tourism management must incorporate all the new trends and supports policies towards sustainability and competitiveness of destinations. However, tourism growth has also unfolded its negative side, especially on the environment, society, and the local economy, shaking the balance between tourists, locals and destinations, and the organizations and businesses of the sector. Thereby, the role of policy planners and developers in tourism should be to maximize destinations communities’ welfare by eliminating any other costs. They should be in the position to identify and promote those types of tourism—mass versus alternative—that locals are in favour, ensuring the success of sustainable tourism development. To this context, a challenging issue is how a remote, poor and low performing tourism region, can be developed as a tourism destination and ensure sustainable growth? What type of tourism should be evolved in the area increasing tourists’ arrivals, extending their stay and at the same time respecting local society’s welfare? These questions are answered through the case study of Epirus development as a tourism destination. Epirus, a region located in Northwestern Greece has the potential to be developed as a favourite tourism destination and establish a distinct tourism destination image. The region holds a wide range of heritage monuments, natural and cultural resources. However, inadequate infrastructure, inefficient governmental policies, ineffective promotion, lack of collaboration of the region’s stakeholders, especially when existing in combination, hinder the sustainable tourism development. The central part of the case study is the S.W.O.T. analysis of Epirus as a tourism destination. This situation analysis discovers the significant advantages and the weak spots of the region as well as the potential opportunities and threats. Further, the stakeholders involved in the destination development are recorded, and the development vision is presented. This analysis will be useful in assessing the region’s competitiveness as a tourism destination and in planning effective policies for the further development and delivery of tourism experiences following the current market trends of the tourism industry.