Celebrities and tourists are flooding into Greece. But a harsh winter isn’t far off | Helena Smith

EEarlier this month, Elon Musk flew to Mykonos and reportedly spent €7,000 to enjoy the pleasures of a gold-colored speedboat for a few hours. In nearby Paros, Roger Federer soaked up the sun with his family off the tennis court, while Magic Johnson gushed about his “life-changing experience” at the Acropolis and Nicole Kidman took to Instagram to thank “beautiful Greece”.

Greece is having a good summer. Just when tourism officials think it can’t get any better, it does. Athens is gearing up for a million visitors this week; Record numbers are flocking to the islands – jellyfish notwithstanding – and there are plenty of vacationer celebrities.

“This year the whole world is voting [for] Greece,” the country’s tourism minister, Vassilis Kikilias, told the Observer. “We have a war in Europe, a pandemic that is still with us, an energy crisis, global insecurity, inflation, tensions with Turkey and even jellyfish, and yet they are yet to come. Arrivals to popular islands are up 20%.”

It can hardly get any better in the Greek capital either: after the lost Corona years, vacationers are streaming back en masse, swarming through the streets of the old town and crowding at archaeological sites.

Figures are already pointing to a tourist season that will surpass the country’s all-time record of 33.1 million visitors – more than triple Greece’s total population – in 2019.

Elon Musk, who flew to Mykonos, was one of many celebrities to visit Greece. Photo: Lily Lawrence/Getty Images

For Costas Lavidas, who runs the kebab shop that made his grandfather famous in the 1950s, the holidaymakers are a lifesaver. “What’s certain is that without tourists, I wouldn’t have the business I have,” he said, laying marinated pork sticks on the grill behind him as lines formed outside the eatery on Syntagma Square in Athens. “Thank God they’re here!”

It is not just holiday islands that are seeing a significant increase in arrivals. Demand for cruises has also skyrocketed, with over 700 cruise ships expected to call at Greek ports in 2022. “Thessaloniki port has increased by 280% and Piraeus by 130%,” said Kikilias.

Flights into Athens International Airport – one of the few in Europe not plagued by delays this summer – are up 20%. The increase is so great that there is even a problem finding enough workers to fill the industry. In recent months, resorts and hotels have drawn in Ukrainian refugees to help fill vacancies.

“Since March 2, there have been nine direct flights from the US to Athens every day. It changed everything,” added Kikilias. “Around 500,000 Americans are expected by November. They spend a lot and with the dollar-euro exchange rate they can spend even more.”

Greece earned €18.2 billion in tourism revenue in 2019 and just over €10 billion last year when Greece opened its borders in May. Speaking to CNN last Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he thinks officials would be “pleasantly surprised” if they “recalculated” at the end of the season.

“Greece is doing particularly well this summer,” he told the US network. “We have made great efforts to improve our tourism product and ensure that all new tourism investments are sustainable. We have seen this year that the tourism season starts very early and I expect it to end very late.”

In an economy so reliant on the sector – tourism accounts for 25% of Greece’s economic output and one in five jobs – the travel fever that seems to be spreading post-Covid has provided more than psychological balm.

Rosy numbers aside, Greeks know they’re in for a tough winter. Inflation hit 11.5% this month, a 28-year high, according to data released by Eurostat on Friday. In a country where the minimum wage is €713 a month and an estimated 43% of the workforce cannot afford vacations, prices have skyrocketed.

“There are a lot of people in this country who work for less than 1,000 euros a month,” says Nikos Vettas, economist and head of the influential think tank IOBE.

“Greek incomes are lower than average salaries in the EU, not least because of the crisis years,” he added, referring to the tough austerity policies that have been the price of international bailouts to avoid the indebted country going bankrupt. Therefore, the price increase came as a shock to many households.

“We are an economy that is still recovering, an economy that has contracted by 25%,” Vettas said. “Although it is now growing faster than many others in Europe thanks to tourism, the energy crisis and war in Ukraine are enormous threats that cannot be ignored.”