Tourists Also Tell Greece 'No'

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Tourists Also Tell Greece 'No'

'wsj'

By ALKMAN GRANITSAS and LAURA STEVENS

ATHENS. (Wall Street Journal). —Greece's tourism season was supposed to be a ray of sunshine amid the country's political crisis and depressed economy. Instead, the outlook is cloudy: Greek-vacation bookings from Germany and the rest of Europe are down sharply, as would-be tourists take fright at the prospect of strikes and street protests.The political uncertainty dogging Greece ahead of its June 17 elections

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May 26, 2012

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5 readers comments


1. Niko Seretis wrote on May 27, 2012 12:46 PM	Their never should have been elections in the first place!! The interim prime minister was doing fine, he achieved his goals and should've been allowed to continue for a few years to lead the transition. Samaras wanted to be prime minister so badly he actually hurt the country far worse than he couldv'e ever imagined. I hope his party can take the lead and keep Greece in Europe but I blame a lot of this on him. As far as protests and strikes go, the Greeks over there will end up killing tourism altogether very soon.

2. Philip Vorgias wrote on May 27, 2012 12:51 PM	Agree with Niko, Samaras miscalculated badly. As for tourism, Greeks have spent the last two years showing the world their worst face. Is it any surprise people are booking elsewhere? Continuous strikes, work stoppages, carping, whining and rioting are not going to attract tourists. Greece needs to market a 'friendly face' to potential tourists, yet all they've seen the last two years is continual ugliness.

3. Niko Seretis wrote on May 27, 2012 3:48 PM	I was in Jamaica 2 weeks before Greek Easter Philip. My 2nd trip there. These people bend over backwards for you. They can't please you and thank you enough. I was there 15 years ago on my honeymoon. We stayed in Ocho Rios about an hour and a half from the airport. We saw poverty and roads worse than Greece's roads. We stayed in Ocho Rios again now and they had a brand new highway and there were beautiful villas all along the highway for most of the way there. They've made progress there. The locals working in those resorts built homes and the country is slowly prospering. Greeks had the tourists but a horrible attitude to go with it. Treating a customer like your doing them a favor and you have better things to do is no way to build up a business and you'll never get repeat customers. Greek islands are safe compared to Caribbean islands. Greek beaches are nicer. Greece is nicer!!

4. Philip Vorgias wrote on May 27, 2012 5:16 PM	If you get outside of Athens the Greek people are much friendlier, Niko. I was working with a German company 4 years ago. One of the guys there raved about a hiking trip he had on Crete. He noted the people were MUCH friendlier than in his past trips to Sicily. You got twice the food for the money than in Italy. Philoxenia still exists in Greeks, once you get outside the civil servant mentality and illegal immigrants in Athens. But no question rampant socialism has had a detrimental effect on the attitude of Greek workers, particularly in the big cities. You see it in the endless work stoppages, strikes and demands for more government spending.

5. Nicholas Kostopoulos wrote on May 28, 2012 12:26 AM	I've been to Greece, and the citizens to tourists are absolutely disgusting. The taxi drivers try to increase the fares beyond what is right. The food prices to the dollars were costing us Americans 1.49 for the Euro. Everything was so expensive. If you had a problem, and went to the tourist police say like in KOS, they were rude and not helpful with the problems we had with the hotel prices. In total Greece was a turnoff in 2010.
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