The founder of luxury tourism in Greece, Spyros Kokotos, has passed away
Source: Tornos News
The most emblematic figure in luxury tourism in Greece and one of the founders of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE), Spyros Kokotos, has passed away.
The news was announced a short while ago by his son Fotis Kokotos, with the following post on social media:
“Captain Spyros loved sailing. This year he didn’t have time to go fishing with his friends like he did last year, on days like this. The day before yesterday, in the hospital, we shot a video together talking about the trip we were going to take “with our girls”, on his beloved boat, the “Eliana”. Mom was by his side. He passed away peacefully”.
Spyros Kokotos breathed his last at the age of 92.
He was the creator of the luxury hotels Elounda Beach, Elounda Bay, Elounda Mare, Porto Elounda and Elounda Peninsula in Elounda, which essentially emerged as a cosmopolitan international resort primarily thanks to Spyros Kokotos.
Architect Spyros Kokotos, inspired by his travels to luxury resorts around the world, began his activity in Greece with the Elounda Beach and Elounda Bay Palace hotels, which highlighted luxury through a combination of unique landscape, architecture and high-level services.
As an architect, he was the builder of more than 40 hotels in tourist destinations in the country. In collaboration with his brother, civil engineer George Kokotos, they designed and built a series of hotels in Rhodes, Crete, Corfu, the Club Med in Kos, the Poseidon Club in Perachora, Corinth, 9 km from Loutraki, the Minos Palace Hotel in Agios Nikolaos, Crete and others.
The initiator of SETE
Spyros Kokotos was the initiator of the Association of Greek Tourist Enterprises (SETE). The first meeting for its establishment was held at “Elounda Mare” on October 31, 1991. Along with Spyros Kokotos, 8 other leading tourism entrepreneurs of the country also participated: Nikos Metaxas, Nikos Daskalantonakis, Telemachos Grigoriadis, Nikos Angelopoulos, Stefanos Voulgaris, Dia Kapsi, I. Sbokos and Tzina Mamidaki (in this exact order they were mentioned at the time in the founding declaration of the Union – which eventually became the Association).
The meeting was organized to “examine the present and future of Greek Tourism, the relations between the State and Tourism Enterprises, the effectiveness of the trade unions of the wider tourism sector, as well as the ability and willingness of the State to resolve the chronic problems of the sector”.
The official announcement of SETE was made on March 26, 1992 at the “Great Britain” hotel. There, Spyros Kokotos presented the reasons for the establishment of the Association and its goals (in a 13-page speech), concluding:
“In this way, we believe that the composite of the tourism forces of the sector, which SETE aspires to develop, will become the reliable instrument for producing and promoting the problems of the tourism industry of the country.”
Of course, Spyros Kokotos was the first president of SETE.
Subsequently, SETE actually evolved into the body that united all the professional associations from the entire spectrum of tourism activity.
Read the statements of SETE and Olga Kefalogianni
The original article: belongs to Tornos News .
