Literature review The Greek economy and the Greek hospitality industry Greece has been a member of the European Union since 1981, a founding member of the OECD, and one of the 12 countries that joined the Euro-zone in January 2001. Nevertheless, Greece has been categorized as an emerging or developing economy (Hoskisson et al., 2000). Elaborating on this, it should be stated that although Greece was placed in the 26th position of most developed or richer countries in the world based on the GDP (World Bank, 2007), it was relatively poor compared to the peer 15 European countries holding the nineth position (IMF, 2008).