Greece without summer crowds is unheard of. But covid-19 is keeping tourists home, and hurting the country's economy
“NO NEED TO need to self-isolate. Maybe try to stay away from crowds tonight, if you can.” Did the official at Athens airport wink as he waved through your correspondent and companion? All that was required to enter the country was a quick throat swab taken by a pair of harried doctors behind makeshift screens. “If it’s positive, we’ll call you,” said the official. “If not, we won’t. We probably won’t.
Yet the pandemic has found another way to wreak havoc: by keeping away the summer visitors who prop up the economy. Tourism accounts for almost one-fifth of national output. Its wrecking will leave Greece facing a 9% drop in GDP this year, according to the European Commission, worse than the EU average. “It’s sad, it’s bad, it’s just unbearable,” said a travel agent confronting an empty order book in Skopelos, an island in the Sporades archipelago where we spent a week.
There are hints of the melancholy that engulfs tourist spots out of season: stacked beach umbrellas, shuttered restaurants. A vague air of ennui has settled among some islanders, for whom the usually dependable annual rhythm—a fat summer that provides for a lean winter—has been violently put out of joint. Many fear they will struggle to pay their bills in the winter. Government support programmes are hopelessly inadequate.
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