Guests are coming to the Greek island of Thassos, but not enough of them. And certainly not enough of the big spenders who would ease Greek fears in the face of yet another wave of austerity brought on by Greece's persistent economic crisis. The beaches during the day seem to be swarming with tourists, but local business owners point out that the hundreds of sunbeds laid out under the umbrellas are mostly unoccupied on the island 20 kilometres south-east of the Macedonian port of Kavala.
In the evening, visitors let their children play with the toys in the shops lining the main pedestrian street in the island's capital, Limenas, but rarely do they buy anything.
Most of the visitors who enter the Bonito souvenir shop do not even respond to the "gia sou," or "hello," from owner Spiros Voulgaridis, 52. "They are reluctant to acknowledge us because they would feel more pressure to buy something," he says. He and wife, Maria, have been running the small shop since 1995. With sales falling and the cost of running the shop rising, Voulgaridis says his prospects look bleak.
"I open at 10 in the morning and close at midnight," he says. "These days, we make 50 euros [54 dollars] a day - maybe. That is a fifth, a sixth of what we made in years past. We have six weeks of high season, and from what we make then, we have to pay rent for the whole year and make a living. Now more taxes too? How?" It is strange that there is so little business with the streets full of visitors and ferries discharging busloads of tourists daily.
The majority of the guests, however, are coming from the Balkans - Romanians, Bulgarians and Serbs - places where travel abroad is new and wallets are thin. None of these countries can match big-spending Western Europeans - the Germans and Britons in particular - who are conspicuous in their absence this summer. But perhaps most of all, the local operators miss domestic tourists, who traditionally thronged the resorts from Friday to Sunday every weekend starting in May and go for longer vacations en masse in the August heat.
"There is fear of the future, and people aren't in the mood to go on holiday," Thassos Mayor Kostas Hatziemmanouil says. The dentist-turned-politician makes his assessment the week after eurozone leaders agreed to open talks on the third bailout for Greece in five years. He voices hope that the deal, even though it includes tax hikes for the islands, might mark a new start for his country. "We will see if the agreement with creditors will change the mood and improve visits in August," the political independent says.
"The situation is difficult, but I am not a pessimist," Hatziemmanouil says. "I believe this agreement was necessary. It had to happen. We must stick to it and make that deal the start of the real resolution of the crisis." The mayor is an exception, however, on his 380-square-kilometre island. Dejection is the typical mood. There is also anger among those who backed leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in his referendum July 5, in which Greek voters rejected austerity measures that his government then turned around and agreed to last week.
"We elected Tsipras to do one thing," says Thanassis Mantzavelas, 40, the owner of the Delfinia Hotel in Limenas. "In the referendum, we said again, do the one thing - and then he does the opposite. ... I think Greece should have declared bankruptcy, to start all over right away. Instead, we take another loan. The crisis has been going on for five years, and now we are only prolonging it." Locals say they believe that the absent but all-important Western European guests are steering clear of their island because of reports of crowds at ATM machines and speculation that Greece might run out of fuel.
But there might be one more thing keeping the Germans away: Many Greeks all but sneer when Germany is mentioned. They blame the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel for the imposed austerity. They insist that it is nothing personal and that German tourists are welcome. And while there are few reports of anti-German unpleasantness on the island, they still occur, according to German online forums on Greek tourism.
Wolfgang and Silke Schenk from the western German town of Bielefeld returned to Thassos with their daughter, Josi, for holiday. They say they made the trip after some consideration. "We were worried about having to carry all our money in cash, about fuel, about the heated atmosphere," Wolfgang Schenk says. "We decided to go because we love Greece. The people were always friendly, and we didn't want to turn away from them when they're in need."
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