There are three issues about these forecasts that need to be commented on. The first is that they are conditional upon the construction of 275,000 additional hotels bed spaces and the qualitative and quantitative upgrading of tourist infrastructure. There are no guarantees however that these conditions will be met, which means that the forecast can turn out to be a wishful thinking. Secondly, the forecast for 1997 does not exactly match the actual figure for international tourist arrivals. Last, these forecasts were published before Athens, was awarded the 2004 Olympic Games.

International Tourist Arrivals to 2005

This optimism is largely reflected in the forecast produced from the Institute for Tourism Research and Predictions (ITRP).

This optimism is largely reflected in the forecast produced from the Institute for Tourism Research and Predictions (ITRP). They predict that inbound tourism demand in Greece will exceed 12 million by the year 2000 and reach 15 million by 2005. Their conservative version of the future is presented in Table 1. According to these forecasts, international tourist arrivals for 1998 was nearly 11 million, and 1999 was a new record for Greece, with inbound demand reaching 11.6 million tourists. With an average annual growth of approximately 4%, the forecast for 2005 is 14.5 million international tourists

Officials and tourist entrepreneurs appear to be very optimistic about the future of inbound tourism demand. Also, the examinations of past and future trends has shown that international tourism demand for Greece is very sensitive to international crises of all shorts and to the price of the tourist product. Due to this volatility to external and internal influences, it is believed that in the case of Greece conservative scenarios about the future of tourism demand are preferable to optimistic ones.