Public and Private Tourism Law in Greece

Abstract

In Greek, the term “tourism” entered our national legislation for the first time with Law No. 4377/1929 “ On ratification of the 23 March 1929 Law Decree on a Greek organisation of Tourism” (Government Gazette 2 A´ 285), which saw the establishment of the Greek National Tourism Organisation (henceforth “ Greek National Tourism Organisation ” or “ GNTO ” ). Law No. 2160/1993 constitutes the first major modern legal act to establisha comprehensive set of regulations on tourism at the national level. A sizeableproportion of the provisions in the aforementioned law has been amended by various subsequent legal acts, while quite a few others have been repealed by law No. 4276/2014. With Law No. 4276/2014, the Greek legislator has moved towards the adoption of specific rules as regards special forms of tourism. The previously mentioned law is the latest basic tourism law and its regulations take precedence over every other previous provision which regulates the same sector, as pursuant to the principle lex posterior derogat priori (Article 2 Civil Code).