28 April 2020 (Brussels, Belgium) – “Stay at home this summer, the European Commission said, “and everything will be fine”. But then European officials started to look at the tourism industry’s significant contribution to the Continent’s economic output, especially in the EU’s most vulnerable countries. All of a sudden, the question of whether summer holidays will happen to some extent or not at all became a costly one for everyone. Some say an existential one.
A question of policy, politics and very personal interests: Not only does Europe take the concept of summer vacation seriously as a way to relieve work-related stress, but it’s also a yearly ritual that feeds a lot of people. The tourism sector in the EU employs 22.6 million people, equivalent to 11.2 percent of the bloc’s total employment, and accounts for almost 10 percent of economic output. The tourism sector has been hit the hardest across the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is without precedence.
And despite uncertainty about travel abroad … those highly dependent on tourism haven’t yet accepted the notion that summer’s simply going to be canceled – instead, they’re looking into ways to make traveling safe. I am more familiar with Greece where I usually reside, which is very eager to save summer, and Malta, where my wife is from, and where tourists from abroad account for a quarter or more of the country’s economic output. There’s no reason for fatalism when it comes to the summer holidays, according to Greek Tourism Minister Charis Theocharis. He’s obviously not happy with the statement by the head of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who warned against booking a summer holiday just yet. But as he noted in an interview in the Greek press over the weekend:
I don’t think that statement is helpful. I mean, OK, I’m a minister for tourism, it’s part of my job description to not like this kind of quote. But still, tourism has developed a resilience, so with a bit of help it’s an industry that will drag the rest out of the crisis. And Europe offers the most developed, safe, travels to citizens of the world. Where’s one to go during this dramatic year, if not to EU shores?
Tourism – directly and indirectly – accounts for one out of four euros of Greece’s economic output, so it’s no wonder Theocharis is concerned. But this is important for all the countries of the south. One of the issues is that this reignites divisions between north and south at a time where it is very, very important to try to stick together and find a common way out.
I was on a Zoom call last week with friends in the Greek tourist industry and here were their main points:
• The southern European countries are working together on common protocols to ensure that people feel and are safe. It’s paramount to have common rules, so a tourist committee of experts was formed to propose common solutions. In about a month’s time there should be something in place, at least as to recommendations if not as an agreement.
• The big point: people need to be able to get to their destinations. As several EU countries have announced they’re starting to lift restrictions, there is a push to allow air and other travel, with specific health protocols: testing, so-called health passports (dubious but let’s skip that for now), and so on in place.
• As far as hotels are concerned, obviously a one-size-fits-all approach is not good. In Greece, for instance, being on a boat with your family and perhaps a very few other people, or in a small apartment, or in a very large complex are all different. Every summer I use all three types of locations. So the struggle is setting minimum standards.
• Greece has fared well in the pandemic (see details in my postscript below). Businesses have gone into hibernation mode very well because of the support the government provided. The fact that its workers are safe and don’t have many of the issues with the pandemic other EU countries have is important.
It’s all about risk management: The EU Commission and EU Parliament tourist agencies and committees are taking a leaf from the Greek approach. As noted by Farrugia Portelli, a Maltese Minster, “there are risks, but we need to manage risks. The EU will need to develop common positions, clear new protocols on flying, accommodating, interacting, dining and visiting, among other things. We have the brainpower.”
But maybe only some may get to travel: One idea, popular in particular with top travel destinations, is opening “tourist corridors” in Europe, with the criteria to decide who gets to travel yet to be defined. One of my tourist industry contacts noted a potential criteria: a “safe corridor” between territories and regions like Greece and Malta, who have received praise for their successful management of the pandemic. So we may end up in a situation where some countries’ citizens are allowed in, while others may not.
AIRLIFT TO RECOVERY: But for island countries like Cyprus, Greece and Malta … and even a country like Ireland … reopening for business is trickier than for continental holiday hot-spots. The widely shut-down aviation sector is the main bridge to the outside world for these countries. Airlines have already been pushing for support, to make them more viable to fly since, presumably, they will be operating below capacity levels. And that has been a call echoed by the tourism ministers of nine mostly southern European countries – including Italy and Spain – who did a video conference yesterday and issued a declaration that pits summer destinations against the countries of origin of sun-seekers. Air transport “is key for tourism and for our economies, for its contribution to economic activity and employment. Therefore, we must facilitate access to liquidity to airlines,” the declaration says.
Few flights, even fewer passengers: European air traffic is expected to be down by anywhere from 45 percent to 57 percent this year because of the coronavirus crisis, air traffic control authority Eurocontrol said. The organization said it predicts an 89 percent drop in air traffic in April, causing a devastating impact on all parts of the aviation value chain, including airports.
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Why Greece has fared better than expected in the pandemic
A man walks through the uncharacteristically empty Monastiraki square, in central Athens, on 26 April 2020
How Greece beat the coronavirus despite a decade of debt has surprised everyone. The country’s hospitals bore the brunt of cuts but its efforts to contain Covid-19 appear to be paying off.
One reason: every day at 6pm Greeks turn on their TV sets and tune into a broadcast that at other times they might have missed. Like most rituals, there are no surprises: each time they encounter the same scene, two men, seated several metres apart, behind a long table in a brightly lit room. The health ministry’s daily coronavirus briefing then begins with Sotiris Tsiodras, a soft-spoken Harvard-trained professor of infectious diseases, delivering the latest facts and figures with the occasional emotional plea. Nikos Hardalias, the civil defence minister, invariably follows, invoking the gravity of the situation with warnings that Greeks “must stay at home”.
The bookish professor and no-nonsense former mayor are the faces who have come to be associated with the government’s drive to contain the spread of Covid-19. Their efforts at keeping the country virus-safe appear to be paying off: in a population of just over 11 million, there were (as of this past weekend) 2,534 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 126 fatalities, far lower than anywhere in Europe. Italy to date has registered 20,465 deaths.
The country’s ability to cope with a public health emergency of such proportions was not a given. After almost a decade embroiled in debt crisis – years in which its economy contracted by 26% – Greece’s health system has far from recovered. State hospitals bore the brunt of cuts demanded in return for rescue loans from international lenders to keep the nation afloat and in the eurozone. With the epidemic’s arrival in Europe, officials were forced to acknowledge, 18 months after the country exited its third bailout, that it had only 560 intensive care unit (ICU) beds.
It was a stark reality that left no room for mitigation strategy, or contemplating policies of achieving “herd immunity”.
Greece, like Italy, also has a large elderly population, with about a quarter of pensionable age. Dr Andreas Mentis who heads the Hellenic Pasteur Institute:
There were realities, weaknesses, that we were very aware of. Before the first case was diagnosed, we had started examining people and isolating them. Incoming flights, especially from China, were monitored. Later, when others began to be repatriated from Spain, for example, we made sure they were quarantined in hotels.
What is increasingly being seen as textbook crisis management, even by political foes, has been attributed as much to prioritising science over politics as to a managerial approach that focused on what the 51-year-old prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has described as “state-sensitivity, co-ordination, resolve and swiftness”. In an interview last week, Alex Patelis, Mitsotakis’ economics adviser, said:
There are problems you can solve through spin and others that require truth and transparency. It was very clear we needed experts and we needed to listen to them. That said, Greeks have been through crisis; they know what it is. I think that also enabled them to adapt and be stoic. From the outset the 25-strong committee pushed for the socially disruptive choice of lockdown, a devastating option for a country that had only just begun to show signs of economic rejuvenation.
In late February, before Greece had recorded its first death, carnival parades were cancelled. On 4 March, well before most of Europe, schools were ordered closed. Within days bars, cafes, restaurants, nightclubs, gyms, malls, cinemas, retail stores, museums and archaeological sites were also shuttered. Traumatic scenes in Italy, across the Adriatic, shocked Greeks as much as anyone else and were highlighted by Tsiodras and Hardalias as they tried to ram home the message of the dangers posed by the disease.
The measures were not immediately accepted and in quick succession the government was forced to shut down beaches and ski resorts, ban public gatherings of more than 10 people, prohibit travel to islands to all but permanent residents and – as argument raged over the power of faith and science – take on the influential Greek Orthodox church, whose clergy refused to give up services and the rite of Holy Communion. Air links with the worst-affected countries were suspended.
But the pandemic was also a catalyst for an administration elected to power last July on an agenda of reform and as Greece went into lockdown, the government announced it was harnessing the crisis to enact long overdue digital reforms aimed at both protecting citizens’ health and modernising the state. All of this was heavily discussed last fall at the Athens Democracy Forum which I attend every year. Greece’s minister of digital governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis:
“When the pandemic broke, the need to simplify government processes became paramount. One of the first things we did to limit the incentives for people to exit their homes was to enable them to receive prescriptions on their phones. That, alone, has saved 250,000 citizens from making visits to the doctor in the space of 20 days. It has dramatically helped reduce the number of people exiting their home, which can only be a good thing.
Documents that once required appearances at government offices and dealing with a labyrinthine bureaucracy were made available online, likewise saving thousands of trips daily. By changing the nature of the interaction of citizens with the state, our hope is that ultimately public trust in institutions will be further regained.
The costs to an economy so dependent on tourism are already high – and that is before emergency funding worth €14.5bn (£12.6bn) in state benefits and tax deferrals is taken into account.
But for now, however, the government is basking in the limelight of unexpected praise for having flattened the curve. If it can pull through this, if Greece can show that it is competent and can deliver, the rest will come. One primary objective: regain some of the credibility that had been shattered during its bailout years. The faster you deal with a health crisis, the greater the short-term economic costs, but then the greater the long-term benefits, too.