All Mediterranean countries adopted and implemented more or less the same model of tourism development based on 4Ss (Sun, Sea, Sand and Sex). The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the experience of developing leisure tourism in Greece in order to draw some useful lessons for other countries and tourism destinations. To address the research aim this paper adopts the approach of strategic analysis. This approach illustrates the importance of tourism as an economic activity and analyses the current situation and structural problems of Greece as a destination. Although Greece has a wonderful range of natural, cultural and heritage resources, the lack of differentiation of the tourism offering as well as competitive disadvantages in the fields of governance, planning and marketing caused an over-dependence on tour operators for the promotion and distribution of its tourism offering. The same factors compromised the quality of tourism services having involved a vicious circle. This situation has a negative impact on the sustainability and competitiveness of the destination and tourism industry.Therefore, the paper assesses the Greek experience with the aim to identify the crucial issues and challenges. This evaluation permits to take some lessons from the Greek experience, beneficial to other destinations willing to develop tourism, and to formulate some recommendations.

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The topic of visitor consumption is of great interest to international organizations and scientific research because of its particular significance. The analysis of tourism activity's economic impact on the host country might be carried out by implementing ex post methods and approaches based mainly on the System of National Accounts. These methods refer to the tourism contribution to the national economy and the analysis of direct and indirect economic effects. The aim of this kind of tourism expenditure's analysis is to obtain the necessary information and to acquire the knowledge needed to formulate and implement the appropriate economic policy, as well as to elaborate the adequate planning and rational tourism management. Tourism activity has specific characteristics rendering its economic analysis a difficult task. In the present paper the main methods attempting to estimate the tourism's economic impact are reviewed, with emphasis on those allowed to obtain the most reliable results; tourism satellite accounts and input‐output analysis. This review is followed by a presentation of the evaluation criteria permitting to estimate their value. In the second section we summarise the scientific debate on tourism economic impact, which primarily focuses on two main issues — the theoretical approach and the adequate methodological instrument. The paper concludes by highlighting the actual state of art in this research field.

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