Tourism is vital to Greece: it is worth about 10% of its GDP, bringing in about 20 million visitors a year.
But its idyllic holiday destinations are not why the rest of the world is talking about Greece at the moment. Nor for Mamma Mia, feta cheese or Aristotle – or for the other many associations with Greece that are part of wider culture.
Right now, at the start of Greece’s peak tourist season, the international media spotlight has been on Greece’s sovereign debt crisis – which is quite a different plain of reality to that which tourists are seeking or even experiencing, although it’s impossible to be unaware of it.
Here in Almyrida. western Crete, visitors from all north and central Europe windsurf, snorkel and swim in the gentle sea, sunbathe on the golden sands, and enjoy the buzz of the sunset-bathed evening tavernas. People in the industry can do nothing but put on a presentable face– after all, their business is taking visitors away from the worries of the world. Of course they’re worried, as everyone in Greece is, about their standard of living declining as a result of near national bankruptcy – not just about already pricey imported consumer brands becoming more expensive and slipping to relative poverty next to their EU neighbours, but anxiety over standards of education, health and welfare. It’s the fact that as a developed nation it faces cranking backwards its standard of living quite substantially that’s ominous.
Relative to other areas of its economy, tourism is a success story.
Greece is a long-popular holiday destination for northern Europeans. Value wise it is very competitive. So it’s all slightly odd, seeing happy, sun-filled, multi-national tourism in action on Crete, and hearing what’s going on politically, and hoping the pain of it all doesn’t change things too much for the people around here. It seems as though the people driving the industry locally are doing most things right: they are sustaining healthy economic activity by providing good-value experiences to foreign visitors. No doubt repeated across the country.
There must be specific concerns for this sector too. What if Greece leaves the euro? Introduces a new uncertain currency? What if there is more unemployment? Will visitors expect more beggars, more crime, more civic unrest? On top of the issues impacting the country as a whole, will these issues affect the appeal of Greece for foreign visitors?
By and large I doubt it. Apart from being a well-established sunny island oasis for northern Europeans (of which there are numerous others) Greece has a fairly strong profile internationally. It is surprising to learn the population is a mere 11 million when so many people in the world have some sort of mental image or association with the country, whether or not they’ve visited.
Images of Greece or Greeks in popular culture built from films like Shirley Valentine, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mamma Mia. They’re not Greek films but they sustain an image of the country that is exotic enough to have cultural idiosyncracies, but also non-threateningly democratic (on the edge of the ex-Soviet world) and Christian (on the edge of the Muslim world). Then there’s Greece’s unique ancient past, which is heavily imported into wider culture and attributed back to Greece in concepts from democracy to civic architecture to the Olympics … Greece remains an important place to visit. And perhaps tourism will have an even more important role as part of an eventual recovery (no one’s talking recovery obviously, seeing as the actual crash hasn’t happened; just more unsustainable loans issued).
What is sad though and what is starting to happen already is that the local Greek population may no longer be able to afford to be at the party. Already because of a decline in domestic demand tavernas have availability where in previous summers it was impossible to get a table because more Greek families are staying away. Sensible restraint at the household budget level, yes. But in general, most people want to be able to eat in the same places as local people, see local families out enjoying themselves, not just other tourists – don’t they? A tourist destination that outprices the locals is just not the same.
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