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The Athens 2004 Olympic Games has given Greece's tourism industry a huge boost, a senior official of the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee (ATHOC) said here on Wednesday.

Marton Simitsek, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of ATHOC, made the remarks at a press conference that marked the end of the four-day Athens Games debriefing in Beijing.

"I believe that the benefits to the country will be shown for the coming ten years. Already, this season that we can say dead for tourism has an increase from other years of more than 40 percent," said Simitsek.

"So you understand that benefits of tourism, because of the success of the Olympic Games, they start presenting themselves to the country in general," he added.

Despite the Athens Olympics, Greece suffered a 6-10 percent decline in the number of tourists in the first half of this year due to security concerns and high accommodation costs, according to the Panhellenic Federation of Tourism Enterprises (POET).

The success of the Athens Olympics, however, has prompted Greekgovernment to set up a strategic plan to increase the ratio of tourism to the gross domestic products (GDP) from 18 percent to 40percent by the end of 2010, while creating 150,000 more jobs in the tourism industry which employs 800,000 people at present.