Greece is beginning the step-by-step process of reopening its tourism sector by eliminating quarantine requirements for travelers coming from 32 nations who've been vaccinated against or test negative for COVID-19.
Starting April 19, citizens from the 27-member European Union (E.U.) bloc, as well as from the United States, Britain, Israel, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates, who meet the testing/vaccination requisites will be able to enter Greece without the need to self-isolate for ten days upon arrival.
The lifting of restrictions for visitors from specific countries is occurring as part of the run-up to a broader (albeit conditional) reopening scheduled for mid-May, which was previously announced by Greek Tourism Minister Harry Theocharis.
"They are baby steps before the country opens as planned for tourists on May 14," an unnamed senior tourism ministry official told The Guardian. "Nine airports will open at the same time that the restriction is lifted."
"Under the plan, airports will reopen in Kos, Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes, Corfu, Athens, Thessaloniki, and Chania and Heraklion on Crete," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed. "We're not expecting tourists to start arriving en masse, but the system needs to be tested. It can't be switched on, in one go, overnight."
Greece is particularly tourism-reliant, with more than 20 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and one in five jobs normally being typically supplied by the tourism sector. On top of this, the country is still struggling to recover from a decade-long debt crisis, which was propelled by the global financial crisis of 2008.
As such, Greece has been particularly proactive in its efforts to revitalize the industry, especially given that many Europeans go to Greece for their warm-weather holidays and the summer season typically yields the largest share of the country's tourism-derived revenue. The nation has suffered unprecedented financial losses over the past year due to the pandemic and accompanying global travel restrictions.
The Greek government is strongly supporting the creation of so-called "vaccine passports" in hopes that it will reenable travel throughout the E.U., and is reportedly also in bilateral talks with non-E.U. countries with the aim of securing individual travel agreements. The anonymous tourism ministry official who spoke to The Guardian said that the Greek tourism minister has a trip to the U.S. planned for late April.
Like other E.U. member states, Greece's fight against COVID-19 is being hindered by Europe's relatively slow vaccine rollout, with two million jabs having been administered thus far. The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, told his parliamentary group on April 14 that it was still too soon to lift movement restrictions. "The threat continues to remain, and for that reason, as we have shown, we are moving forward step by step once, every week, we have evaluated the epidemiological data with experts," he said.
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