## 4 E-Consultation on the Spatial Development of the Tourist Sector in Greece
### Spatial Development of the Tourist Sector--The Proposed Policy Reform  
The tourist sector is one of the most important economic sectors, the \"heavy industry\" of the Greek economy. This is due to the comparative advantages of the Greek territory, such as the extensive length of coastline and the clusters of islands, the natural and cultural capital, the favorable weather conditions, _etc._, which render many Greek regions attractive tourist destinations on a global scale [49]. The development of the tourist sector in Greece has, during the last few decades, been mainly based on the mass tourist model, thus exhibiting a high concentration in both time (high seasonality) and space (high levels of spatial concentration at the coastline and islands). This pattern of tourist development has, in turn, resulted in an increasing pressure, exerted on the natural, cultural and social resources of certain regions; and a low exploitation of resources of other regions, contributing among others to the increase of regional inequalities [50]. The spatial development of the sector is of crucial importance for the development of a diversified tourist product, more spatially balanced and sustainable, assuring not only the smooth co-existence with the rest of economic sectors, but also the least disturbance of the natural and cultural resources [51]. Along these lines, the strategic directions for the spatial development of the tourist sector at the national level are defined in 2009, through the Special Framework for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development of the Tourist Sector (SF-T) [52]. SF-T is a part of the Greek Spatial Planning Policy Framework, consisting of one General and five Special (sectoral) Frameworks. These provide the strategic directions for spatial planning at the national level, forming thus the ground for spatial policy decisions at the regional and local level. The SF-T expresses the long-term national policy for the spatial development of the tourist sector (2009-2024) and an action plan for the sustainable tourist development at the country level. According to this, the Greek territory is divided into specific types of regions, based on the following three _criteria_[52]: (a) type and intensity of tourist activity; (b) morphological characteristics; and (c) fragility of local natural and cultural resources. The classification of regions according to the above criteria is presented in Table 1 (column \"a: SF-T 2009 classification of Greek regions\"). Each specific type of region is suitable for the development of certain types of tourist activities. The implementation of the SF-T has revealed a number of important issues for further consideration, which combined with strategic choices both at the EU (\"Lisbon strategy\" [53], \"Europe as the top tourist destination\" [54], _etc._) and the national level (Greek legislation on the protection of biodiversity [55], Greek legislation for enforcing European Convention on Landscape [56], _etc._), as well as the current unfavorable fiscal position of the country, have supported the need for certain _adjustments_ of this tourist policy framework. These aim at creating an upgraded legislative framework, capable of improving the attractiveness of Greek regions to tourist entrepreneurial investment decisions. In this respect, a revised SF-T (Figure 4) for the spatial development of the tourist sector was proposed, which was exposed to the \"OpenGov\" platform for public e-consultation [43]. According to this revision, a diversified classification of regions is also emerging, shown in Table 1 below (column \"b: revised classification of regions entering the e-consultation\"). In each type of region presented in column b of Table 1, are assigned different types of tourist development paths, along the lines of sustainability.