Greece is having a good summer. Just when tourism officials think it can’t get better, it does. Athens is preparing for one million visitors this week. record numbers are flocking to the islands – despite the jellyfish – and there are plenty of celebrity holidays galore. “This year the whole world is voting [for] Greece,” the country’s tourism minister, Vassilis Kikilias, told the Observer. “We have a war in Europe, a pandemic that is still with us, an energy crisis, global uncertainty, inflation, tensions with Turkey, even jellyfish and yet they keep coming. Arrivals to popular islands increased by 20%. It can’t get much better in the Greek capital either: after the lost years of the coronavirus, holidaymakers have returned en masse, filling the streets of the historic city center and archaeological sites. Figures already point to a tourist season that will surpass the country’s all-time record by attracting 33.1 million visitors – more than three times the total population of Greece – in 2019. Elon Musk, who flew to Mykonos, was one of the many celebrities who visited Greece. Photo: Lily Lawrence/Getty Images For Costas Lavidas, who runs the steakhouse that first made his grandfather famous in the 1950s, vacationers are safer. “For sure, if it weren’t for the tourists I wouldn’t have the business I have,” he said, placing sticks of marinated pork on the grill behind him as lines formed outside the restaurant off Syntagma Square in Athens. “Thank God he’s here!” It is not only the holiday islands that report a significant increase in arrivals. Demand for cruises has also soared, with over 700 ships expected to call at Greek ports in 2022. “There was a 280% increase in the port of Thessaloniki and a 130% increase in Piraeus,” Kikilias said. Flights to Athens International Airport – one of the few in Europe not affected by delays this summer – have jumped by 20%. The tide is such that if there is any problem it is finding enough workers to staff the industry. In recent months resorts and hotels have turned to Ukrainian refugees to help fill seats. “Since March 2, there are nine direct flights from the US to Athens every day. It was a game changer,” Kikilias added. “About 500,000 Americans are expected to come through November. They are big spenders and with the exchange rate of the dollar to the euro they can spend even more.” Greece earned €18.2 billion in tourism revenue in 2019, up from just over €10 billion last year when Greece opened its borders in May. Speaking on CNN last Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he believed officials would be “pleasantly surprised” when they “do the math” at the end of the season. “Greece is doing particularly well this summer,” he told the American network. “We have put a lot of effort into upgrading our tourism product, ensuring that all new investment in tourism is sustainable. This year we saw the tourist season start very early and I expect it to end very late.” In an economy so dependent on the sector – tourism accounts for 25% of Greece’s economic output and one in five jobs – the travel bug that seems to have taken hold post-Covid has resulted in little more than a psychological balm. Far from rosy figures, Greeks know they are in for a tough winter. Inflation reached 11.5% – a 28-year high – this month, according to data released by Eurostat on Friday. In a country where the minimum wage is €713 a month and an estimated 43% of the workforce cannot afford to take a holiday, prices have skyrocketed. “There are a very large number of people in this country who work on less than €1,000 a month,” said Nikos Vettas, an economics academic who heads the influential IOBE think tank. “Greek incomes are lower than average wages in the EU, mainly because of the crisis years,” he added, referring to the harsh austerity that was the price of international bailouts to prevent the debt-stricken nation from collapsing. As such, the price hike came as a shock to many households. “We are an economy that is still in recovery, an economy that has shrunk by 25 percent,” Vettas said. “Although it is now growing faster than many others in Europe, thanks in part to tourism, the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine are huge threats that cannot be ignored.”
