Greece: Will the tourists come?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As Greece prepares to reopen its beaches, tavernas and ancient monuments for the summer season, the country is anxious that few tourists will turn up, and those that do could bring the coronavirus back with them.
Manuela Saragosa asks tourism minister Harry Theoharis whether his country is being reckless in opening up so quickly, having so successfully contained the virus within its own borders.
Meanwhile Florian Schmitz reports from the island of Thassos, where many restaurants and cafes may not bother opening for the season as the demands of social distancing and the expected paucity of customers make it hardly worth the effort.
Plus travel writer Simon Calder discusses how the coronavirus is likely to transform the character of tourism this season, and perhaps in the long-term too.
(Picture: Empty sun chairs on a sandy Greek beach; Credit: mbbirdy/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | After an explosion in space, now it's the climax of the rescue mission. |
| 0:05.4 | Can the astronauts be brought home safely? |
| 0:08.6 | What could we have missed? |
| 0:10.6 | This can't be happening. |
| 0:12.5 | You could hear a pin drop. |
| 0:18.6 | 13 minutes to the moon from the BBC World Service, the final episode. |
| 0:24.9 | Available now. |
| 0:28.7 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC with me, Manuela Saragossa. |
| 0:34.7 | In this edition, Greece is set to reopen its doors to tourists this weekend, but will |
| 0:39.9 | anyone come? If they don't come, it would be a catastrophe. If some of the bogging countries |
| 0:45.0 | gained better control of the virus, we might be able to limit the damage to about 50%, a big fall |
| 0:51.0 | nonetheless. What's at stake for Greece and any other country that depends on tourism? |
| 0:56.6 | There are going to be countries with zero cases opening up to countries which have very high level of infection |
| 1:03.5 | simply because the alternative is economic oblivion. |
| 1:07.3 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:14.1 | Thank you. That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. What makes Greek summer so precious? |
| 1:19.9 | It's not the sea. It's not the sun. It's more than that. |
| 1:29.9 | Greek summer is a state of mind. |
| 1:33.8 | The official Greek campaign there to entice back tourists despite the global coronavirus pandemic. |
| 1:36.9 | And this is the message from the Greek tourism minister. |
| 1:40.6 | We want people to come and relax and remove some of that stress that has been accumulated during this very, very difficult period for everyone. |
| 1:49.5 | Harry Theo Harris, the Greek tourism minister, saying, well, what you'd expect him to say. |
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