Greece Letter: Too great a burden on shoulders of tourism

Today, there is hardly a tourist to be seen in Corfu. Most hotels and tourist outlets have closed for the season. It’s blissfully empty and quiet.

This isn’t Venice, where almost no one lives unless they work in tourism. Corfu – and the same goes for most Greek cities – is inhabited by real people, who love their city and their island and are proud of their heritage. But they also have to earn a living.

It's difficult to say which are better: the tourist-free months when we can walk around the uncongested streets, or the months when swarms of tourists make those streets almost impassable. From November to April we can appreciate the beauty of the city, the villages and the sea views; from April to October comes the prosperity that is the lifeblood of Greece and which occludes that beauty.

I’m not exaggerating. The babel as a Japanese troupe is herded through to make way for a procession of Germans, Chinese, Russians, Brits, Italians and Americans is astonishing.

As Deirdre Madden says in her novel Remembering Light and Stone: "No one wants to shatter the myth of the warm, sensual, happy south, for if we did not believe in that, where would people go to escape the rigour of the north?" And where would the tour operators who exploit that myth turn for profit? Greece is not only a sunspot; it's a theme park. It's a commodity to be sold in the international marketplace.

Survival

Greece depends desperately on tourism for its economic survival. As the Greek economy continues to shrink, and unemployment rises, the percentage of GDP represented by tourism (currently 20 per cent) increases, as does the percentage of the workforce dependent on it (also 20 per cent).

Far too great a burden is placed on the shoulders of tourism. Obstacles to agricultural exports, and lack of either industry or a financial services sector, inhibit economic growth, so tourism is seen as the saviour. But here’s the problem: tourism is vibrant yet vulnerable. It can by no means be assumed that tourist numbers will grow or that tourism revenue from consumer spending and taxation will be sustained.

First, the regional crisis of the refugees deters tour operators. The island of Chios, 100 per cent dependent on tourism, and currently inundated with refugees, has been told that all charter flights for next year have been cancelled. Greece gained slightly from cancellations after the attempted coup in Turkey in July, but the region as a whole is vulnerable to such eruptions, and the instability of the Greek political situation isn't helping.

Second, tourists are spending less. Travellers on cruise ships spend almost nothing ashore, and patrons of all-inclusive resort hotels hardly venture outside the perimeter fence. And tourists generally are more cautious about how far their pounds or dollars can stretch.

Third, and much more seriously, Greece is now so glutted with hotels that many of the most beautiful environments in Greece are in danger of being obliterated by hotel developments. Every new car park, every road-widening, every new hotel, diminishes the “real” Greece which tourism is selling.

Santorini at risk

Santorini, one of the world’s top tourist destinations (not least for wedding celebrations), is most at risk. One coastal hotel project begun in August has been declared “totally illegal” for breaches of planning and environmental protection laws. The mayor of Santorini has become a national hero by saying vehemently that his island is so saturated by tourism that it cannot absorb any more. Moreover, building work encroaches on the unique volcanic soil which supports Santorini’s other industry: the Assyrtiko grape and its distinctive dry white wine.

The lack of accurate statistics or, rather, the competing statistics from different agencies makes it impossible to know whether revenue is declining or increasing, especially when VAT evasion is widespread. It seems, however, that tourist arrivals are increasing by 10 per cent, while spending per tourist is declining by the same amount.

The fantasists believe that Greece's magnetism as a tourist destination will continue to attract even greater numbers and more spending. Developing the Chinese market is one plank of this belief. The realists know that the market is finite, and so is the product. There's a limit to the number of tourists who can visit the clifftop monasteries of Meteora, Knossos in Crete or even the Athens Acropolis itself.

In overcrowded Venice there’s a proposal to build a “virtual Venice”, like a Disneyland, right next to the real Venice. Building a “virtual Parthenon” could run into local planning problems, and might not please the EU at all, in case it grew into a “virtual Greece”.