The subject concerning the present article is the global economic crisis and the crisis of the Greek model for tourist development, since it appears possible that the influence of a number of distortions characterising the country’s model of tourist development have become stronger with the advent of the global economic crisis. The analysis is founded in the general perception that the problems in Greek tourism constitute distortion of the developmental model which has reached its limits of exhaustion and saturation.In the present article, an analysis will be attempted of the circumstantial conjunctions and structural causes of the particular model, as this is perceived and applied in Greece, which has manifested symptoms of further deterioration due to the global economic crisis. The first part of the article briefly presents an approach to the relationship established between global economic crisis and tourism while, at the same time, a first estimation of the consequences of the crisis on Greek tourism is attempted. The second part analyses the life cycle of the tourist product, the crisis of the 4S model and the saturation of the tourist product. The third and fourth part investigates the crisis of the Greek model for tourist development and its structural problems. Finally, in the fifth part, a differentiated model of tourist development is proposed, the 4E model, which, in essence, is in contrast with the attributes of the 4S model. It is suggested that the current crisis of Greek tour¬ism appears to be general and manifests itself in a diversity of inadequacies, the source of which is the structural problems of Greek tourism.
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