Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

It's Monday the 11th of May.

I hope you had a good weekend.

Mine was enlivened by a visit to the Greek Ambassadors residence in London's Mayfair, absolutely beautiful property.

But I wasn't there for a look around, I was there to meet the Greek tourism minister,

Olga Kefalogiani, who has been in London for a couple of days this weekend.

She has been telling me all about the Greek move to remove biometric border checks for British visitors.

Alone of the Schengen area countries,

you will not have your fingerprints or your facial biometric taken when you enter or leave Greece.

First of all, she told me why this is being done.

The British travellers to Greece have increased throughout the years,

and 2025 was a record year, both in terms of arrivals and revenue when it comes to

British travelers. And they actually rank number one now as, let's say, source market for

Greek tourism, which shows, first of all, how important the British market is for Greek tourism,

but on the other hand, how Greece is increasing its appeal to British visitors.

So we really wanted to make sure that British travelers this year would be facilitated

in their entry-exit system in Greece.

We really want our travelers to have the best experience, and we understand that any

inconvenience in getting into Greece or exiting would create a frustration.

So we really don't want anyone to have to face a lot of bureaucracy. So we have managed to

facilitate the system in order for British citizens to not have any burden, especially

at the airports coming in and out of our country. I think that what is important for travelers

...