Coronavirus success story Greece ponders reopening for tourism in July

By enforcing a strict and early lockdown, Greece has managed to keep coronavirus deaths incredibly low — and the country’s prime minister is now talking about opening for international tourism in July.

“The tourism experience this summer may be slightly different from what you’ve had in previous years,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis told CNN’s Nic Robertson this week. “Maybe no bars may be open, or no tight crowds, but you can still get a fantastic experience in Greece — provided that the global epidemic is on a downward path.”

This week, some businesses, like hair salons and bookstores, were allowed to reopen for the first time since March 12.

Greece closed its schools on March 11 and imposed a stay-at-home order on March 23. It has had about 150 COVID-19 deaths — fewer than 15 per 1 million people   — and the curve seems to have flattened.

Opening up to tourism inevitably means opening the country up to people potentially carrying the virus, but Mitsotakis hopes current testing regimes can be enhanced to reduce the risk. At the moment, every international traveler is screened for COVID-19 upon arriving in Athens.

Mitsotakis is hoping for something much more comprehensive. He wants international, or at least European, standards that set the same travel protocols for all countries.

“I would assume that people will be tested before they get on a plane, not after they arrive here. They can only get on the plane with a negative test, or with a positive antibody test,” he said.

If all goes to plan, he hopes the country can start welcoming tourists by July 1.

Given the amount of effort it will take to get here at a time of restricted airline service , Mitsotakis is banking on “more high-end tourists.”

“Yachting, for example, where you have a fewer number of people who are on a boat, and then they go out to eat or buy provisions,” he says.

City hotels are expected to re-open as of June 1, with seasonal hotels expected to follow up to a month later.

The question of when and how to open is no trivial point for a nation that’s been roiled by recession and economic turmoil for more than a decade.

This country’s GDP is at least 20% dependent on tourism, double the global average. It had over 31 million tourists in 2019, three times its population,  and at least one in four Greeks works in tourism or related industries.