Greece is for tourists

ATHENS- On the southern slopes of the Acropolis, tourists’ footsteps flip-flop across rough rocks in search of the perfect Parthenon selfie. The city’s central cafes are crammed. And, down at the port, officials in pristine white uniforms carefully conduct the cars, people, and bicycles setting sail across the Aegean Sea. It’s summer in Athens and the Greek tourism industry is having a very good year.

A smallish country of only 11 million people, Greece is already set to beat the country’s 2019 record of 33.1 million foreign visitors, now welcoming more than 1 million travellers a week, according to Tourism Minister, Vassilis Kikilias. Hotels on popular Greek islands are fully booked through late September—well beyond the traditional season, and celebrity spotting has become a sport. Images of Elon Musk, Demi Moore and 50 Cent are being posted from the bars of Mykonos, the waters of the Ionian Sea, and the yachts of the Cyclades.

But ordinary Greeks are not basking in Greece’s successful summer.

“Greece is for tourists only,” says Amalia Zavacopoulou a single working mother from Athens, “everything is more expensive from fuel to something as simple as a souvlaki (a Greek staple street food)” and ordinary Greeks, she says, are struggling to keep up with the budgets of their foreign guests.

Her electricity bills have risen nearly 50 percent since before the pandemic. Fuel costs in Greece have risen by more than 35 pecent this year, due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and Russian efforts to starve Europe of energy. Greece relies on Russia for about 40 percent of its natural gas so it has been hit particularly hard.

Inflation hit 12 percent this summer, its highest level in 29 years, according to data released by Eurostat, the official statistical authority of the European Union. And, in a nation where the minimum wage is 713 euros per month ($725), more than 43 per cent of the labour force can’t afford to take a holiday, according to a survey by the European Trade Union Institute. Return ferry tickets to an island last year for a family of four, including a car, cost 600 euros (610). This year it’s over 850 Euros ($862), according to the Ministry of shipping. The cheapest hotel on Mykonos this week, costs at least 200 euros per night. That’s prohibitive even for most middle-class Greeks. In total, a family holiday to a modest island destination would cost someone earning double minimum wage a full month’s salary. And that’s before accounting for food, drinks and restaurant costs.

Yet Athenians’ biggest complaint of all is the rise in rent.

“We in Greece, had the big financial problems of 2010-2016. We recovered. Everything went well, and then came Covid, and then the war,” says Giorigios Stampoulos, an Athens cab driver for over 22 years, “now the tourists came back. We have a lot of tourists…. But the problem is we can’t afford an apartment. Because it’s all AirBnB for tourists and if you find something they want double or triple from last year.”

Before the pandemic, a modest two-bedroom apartment in central Athens would rent for roughly 300 euros a month. Now the monthly price is at least 550. Prices in large part have soared as tourists, expats, and Digital Nomads are making the most of the capital’s comparatively low rents and living costs. “If you have a Western European salary, Athens is a good base,” says 27-year-old Ben Biasi, a French tourist strolling through the pedestrian backstreets of Athens’ Plaka neighborhood.

“Let’s go to an island, buy a house and work from the house!” he says to his group of friends.

Companies like AirBnB and Booking.com have been catering to not only tourists but those seeking longer-term stays. One such company is Blueground which has more than 1,000 fully furnished apartments in Athens, rented out to mostly U.S. citizens for around 1200 euros per month.

“Business is a booming! It’s good,” says Demetris Geras, 27, from Blueground, “they come for the sun. It’s the Florida of Europe.”

As a Greek-American with family here, however, Geras recognises the hardships that Greeks are facing. “Most of the youth here are living with their parents. They make less than 1,000 euros a month, so they can’t move out.” Although he works in property, Geras sees the problem as a lack of fair employment opportunity and remuneration from employers.

“We can point fingers at people in real estate. But it’s almost criminal how much they (Greeks) get paid. They are almost starving…. Wages are not so great due to austerity measures and low Greek minimum wage. Food and rent have gone up. Homeowners have raised their AirBnB prices for foreigners who are coming to Athens. And Greeks are the ones paying the price.”

One of those paying the price is street artist and graphic designer Kostas Sergiou, 36. “I’m struggling,” he says, “in March, I had a health problem, a panic attack….the cause was stress.” Sergiou’s landlady put up his rent and now he’s struggling to find the money to pay bills.

Summer holidays are sacred to Greeks and most Athenians tend to flee the city heat for vacation on the coast or mountains. Sergiou is staying put. “I prefer to stay here because I feel less stressed….for us Greeks, it’s cheaper to go on a trip outside Greece than to an island.”

Despite the economic hardships Greeks are still finding ways to have a break.

Drive along the coast from Athens to the Ancient temple of Sounio this summer and you will find lines of parked cars dotted around rocky swimming holes. The so-called Athenian Riviera is packed. As city residents seek swims closer to home. Greeks also continue to have a relatively high level of property ownership within their families, and many Greeks are choosing to take breaks at their family home or with friends who own a property. Others are finding cheaper alternatives like “free-camping,” playing a cat and mouse game with authorities, as they erect tents along the coast before being told to move on or saturating areas where it is tolerated, such as the far-flung island of Tilos, which has seen a spike in campers this year.

Others, still, are going abroad to European destinations like Berlin, Sergiou says, as Greece becomes unaffordable.

But amid it all, a trace of traditional Greek attitudes remains. “Open your Instagram and you see everyone splashing about….summer is summer,” Sergiou says, “Greek people will go wherever they can and face their problems in September. “