Germany's TUI Asks Greek Hoteliers To Pay Them in Drachmas

The pressure and certainly the propaganda against Greece continued through the weekend. On Saturday Germany's Bild featured a letter and contract from multinational travel and tourism Germany travel company TUI (one of the largest tour leaders in Greece) asking Greek hoteliers to begin accepting the fact that they will be paid in their new currency (the drachma) from hereafter if Greece leaves the euro! A spokesman for the travel operator, Robin Zimmermann, apparently confirmed the report saying that his company has to protect itself against these kinds of currency risks. The report in the paper quoted him as saying that "there is more than a theoretical possibility that Greece will leave the eurozone."

The news obviously angered many people in Greece. The board chairman of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE), Andreas Andreadis, told the paper that a number of hotel owners in Greece had received the letter from TUI requesting them to sign a new contract. "No hotelier is going to do that, and we have appealed to the Greek tourism ministry," he said. "TUI cannot pressure any hoteliers into signing something like this."