After a long lockdown winter, the beaches of this island are finally filling up again.
At Zorkos beach, a packed strip of scorching sand on the northeastern part of Andros, vacationers lined up by a small wooden bar, their bathing suits still dripping. It was Orthodox Whit Monday, the end of a three-day weekend that traditionally marks the first island getaway for many Greeks.
For islands like Andros, that weekend in mid-June also gave a first glimpse of what this year’s summer would look like — and things seemed promising.
At the Zorkos bar, bartender Vassiliki Giannoulopoulou was already running out of various spirits and beer by the early afternoon. Happily, his guests didn’t mind switching to gin, of which he still had plenty.
“The ‘c’ word has not even been whispered,” says Giannoulopoulou, for whom it’s the fourth summer working at the beach bar. “The island is packed. I only see people eager to find their good old holiday habits.”
The picture held up even a few minutes’ drives inland. At one of the island’s best-known taverns, waiters serving dozens of tables of hungry holiday-makers had to turn away guests.
“Leave and come back another day to enjoy it. We’ve served more than 2,000 people today and we are about to have a wedding dinner,” an exhausted waiter told a group of young women.
Like the sunset, people flocked to the alleys in the chora, the island’s main town, to find a restaurant for dinner. Reservations are key — most tables are booked from early afternoon until midnight, and coronavirus rules require revelers to find a seat rather than crowd the bar. That, plus the masks are worn reluctantly by the waiters, remain the only reminders of the pandemic.
“It so beautiful, it’s like mid-August! Everyone is here,” said Katerina, a lawyer drinking her Aperol at the main square with a couple of friends visiting from Athens, her dog sleeping serenely on her lap.
Like many here at this time, she’s a local.
“This time of the year, foreigners were already here, now it’s just the Greeks,” said hotelier Aggelos Papaioannou. “They are fed up and want a way out. They used to book only the very last minute, but now they have already booked for August.”
Papaioannou hopes this summer will be better than the disastrous 2020 season. Last year, tourism revenue plunged to €4.28 billion from €18 billion in 2019. The number of tourists was down by 76.5 percent, according to the Greek Tourism Confederation Institute.
But while Greece’s coronavirus figures have sharply dropped since early June, now averaging around 420 cases a day in the last week, the more infectious so-called Delta variant and the restrictions on British travelers have given rise to fresh concerns for the country’s tourism season.
Greece’s tourism sector, which accounts for more than a fifth of its economic output and provides employment for about a quarter of the workforce, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, officially rolled out its welcome mats on May 15. But so far interest from abroad has been limited, with hoteliers hoping for improvement in July and August.
“Many bookings that were done online from abroad have been canceled because of the uncertainty. Some 35 percent of our capacity is booked for July and August and we hope for the best,” said Papaioannou.
Lowered expectations
Businesses groups already believe that the initial target of reaching around 50 percent of the 2019 tourism revenue level is no longer realistic. The sector has lowered its estimates for this year’s revenues from €5.5 billion to €6 billion, having lowered it already from €8 billion at the beginning of the season.
“We can’t make any estimates because of the variants,” said Grigoris Tasios, president of the Greek Federation of Hoteliers and owner of a hotel in Halkidiki. “At the moment, the bookings on average do not exceed 35 percent” of hotel capacity. He added that hoteliers cannot go ahead with hiring staff as they don’t know how much personnel they will eventually need.
“The virus mutations have also mutated the markets,” he said. “British tourists, our main market, are still away, as we are on the U.K.’s ‘amber list,’ while the Germans and French are moving at a real slow pace. On the other hand, Greece has become a hot spot for American tourists.”
Demand from the U.S. for Greek holidays has skyrocketed unexpectedly this summer and major U.S. airlines have added more direct flights to Athens. The country was among the first EU members to reopen for American tourists — and Greece has also taken a more lax approach to other travelers.
During last week’s European Council summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized Greece and other tourist-dependent countries for freely allowing in travelers who have been vaccinated with Russian and Chinese vaccines, which have not been approved by EU regulators.
In response, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis initially ruled out tightening restrictions, but on Sunday Greece announced that travelers from Russia would have to present a negative test whether or not they had been vaccinated.
“There is a big pressure to the government from Germany and countries which are not tourist-dependent and could very easily add more restrictions, as they are not footing the bill,” said Andreas Andreadis, CEO of the Sani/Ikos Group of luxury hotels and honorary president of the Greek Tourism Federation.
He urged the Greek government to stand firm, pointing to existing restrictions and claiming that there is no significant danger of tourists spreading the virus.
Tourism Minister Harry Theocharis has also repeatedly dismissed criticism that tourism was to blame for the country’s second wave last autumn. Greece opened for the tourism season last year with single- and double-digit case numbers, which multiplied during the summer. On Monday, around a fourth of new cases were from incoming travelers.
Betting on vaccines
Athens is hoping that accelerating its vaccination campaign will allow for a more carefree summer. But many employees in the tourism sector, many of whom are younger people, are reluctant to be vaccinated.
Some experts warn that only 55 percent to 58 percent of the population will end up getting fully vaccinated, much less than the target of 75 percent. Currently, about 37 percent are fully vaccinated, slightly above EU average. But Akis Skertsos, the deputy minister to the prime minister, said that based on the appointments booked, some 48 percent of the population and 57 percent of adults will be fully vaccinated at the end of July.
Greece has tried offering incentives such as phone data to young people to encourage them to get vaccinated. Andreadis said his group gives two paid days off for everyone that gets vaccinated.
“Young people under the age of 25 are still hesitant, as there is a broad false perception that the dangers outweigh the benefits,” he said.
Back in Andros, the long weekend buzz had left the island feeling optimistic — even if the mood was tinged with caution.
“We have opened our businesses and we are waiting,” said Dimitris Mendrinos, who owns a bar in the main square of the chora. “These first signals are good but there is still a lot of uncertainty.”
