The individual ticket increases from 7 to 8 euros, the group ticket (for groups of more than 15 people) from 5.50 to 6 euros/person, the ticket for people over 65, holders of a special culture card, journalists and three children from 5, 50 to 6 euros, for students, pupils, those with many children, the unemployed, soldiers and the disabled from 3.50 to 4 euros, while for the students of the schools of the Municipality of Ioannito it remains at 2 euros.
Deputy Mayor Minas Paschopoulos spoke of a very small increase, stating that the additional revenue will be used to digitally highlight areas of the Cave, which are not accessible, something that, of course, was not mentioned in the written proposal, where the argument for the increase was invoked to increased energy costs. Finally, after being pointed out by the head of the major opposition D. Papageorgiou, it was clarified that both reasons are valid.
The ticket increase was voted against by the “Yiannena Nea Epoch” faction, with the municipal councilor Eleni Akonidou pointing out in her proposal that a 15% increase is coming in a difficult financial period for everyone, without it being clear that any substantial benefit will result. “The biggest bet would be to increase the number of visitors, to give incentives to highlight the Cave”, he emphasized, pointing out that there is a concerted effort by the municipal authority to proceed with increases. A point made by D. Papageorgiou afterwards, saying that during the term of office of the previous municipal authority, which was called upon to manage a pandemic and the energy crisis, no increase was made.
Minas Paschopoulos attributed the criticism to opposition reasons, with the former president of Spileio Kostas Gogo stating that there is no cave in the world with the 6 characteristics of Perama Cave, which has a ticket price of less than 25 euros.
