Greece on the breadline: 'still a beautiful and safe holiday destination'

 

Jon Henley learns about a trio who decided to take matters into their own hands and set up an initiative to promote tourism

Corfu, Greece: tourism provides employment for one fifth of the country's workforce. Photograph: Robert Harding Picture Library L/Alamy

 

Waste not, want not

Alexia Katsaounis writes to tell me about an initiative started late in 2011 called Desmos. Along similar lines as Boroume, but working with manufacturing companies producing clothes, cleaning supplies, medicines and so on, Desmos aims to put producers with surplus production in touch with welfare organisations that need their products. Alexia said most of the information about the initiative is in Greek, but sent this link to a recent article in the local Athens English-language newspaper, Athens News.

 

Maintaining Greece's "heavy industry"

Self-help initiatives are not confined to Greeks within Greece. Yorgos Kleivokiotis, Onic Palandjian and Stathis Haikalis write to tell me about Up Greek Tourism, a private initiative aimed at promoting Greece as a holiday destination through the current crisis. "While the government is trying to find solutions, individuals, can't wait. We need to take matters into our own hands," said Palandjian. Kleivokiotis said the trio all had day jobs and had chosen tourism as the focus of their efforts because it was "the 'heavy industry' of Greece": tourism accounts for about 15% of Greece's GDP and employs roughly a fifth of the country's 4m workforce. In 20 days, using mainly Facebook and Twitter the three raised more than $20,000 from some 330 private individuals, half of them outside Greece in countries including Australia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UAE, US and UK. The money will be spent on an electronic billboard display that will go up in Times Square, New York, on March 23 for 30 days, reminding the American public that regardless of its economic situation, Greece is "a beautiful and safe holiday destination", Kleivokiotis said.

 

Voter apathy on the increase

The regular CiF commentator Kizbot has lived in Athens for several years. She contributes this on next month's general elections, seen by many as a likely turning-point: "Greeks have always been fiercely proud of the role they personally play in upholding democracy and voter participation has usually been pretty high. But then many Greeks have lived through the hell of dictatorship and know that democracy is precious. So voting has always been seen as both a right and a duty. Until now. Ever since democracy was restored it is the two main parties who have taken turns to govern, with no real threat from other parties. Both main parties used trading favours and maintaining the status quo as a means of holding onto power and continued in this vein even throughout the crisis. When Deputy PM Pangalos claimed that all of Greece had 'eaten' the money together, most of his compatriots disagreed. And with a good third of them now living below the poverty line, while Greek politicians earn some of the highest MPs salaries in Europe, that is understandable. Faith in politicians and the political system has all but collapsed and most Greeks are unlikely to bother voting, or intend to spoil their ballots, in the upcoming elections. Other smaller parties have started to garner more support, especially left wing parties. But, unfortunately, this is unlikely to result in much change in parliament as it is doubtful whether the left wing parties could ever manage to pool their resources and work together for change. They are, like the main parties, more interested in keeping an eye on the main chance than anything else. It doesn't leave Greeks a lot to vote for."

Greece on the breadline: 'still a beautiful and safe holiday destination' | World news | The Guardian