Jeff–Saturday
A
half-dozen years ago I wrote a blog titled, “An Open Letter to Mykonians”
expressing my concern over the direction I perceived my adopted island home was
headed. By then I’d written a trilogy of books set on Mykonos, each separated
by five years from the other. One covered
the spirit of old Mykonos, another Mykonos on the verge of existential change,
and a third after “the Fall.”
By the time I wrote that post, Mykonos had become a summertime island of 24/7 glitz, with its
physical past rapidly disappearing amid a relentless onslaught of construction
vehicles, and a cultural past all but abandoned to an agenda of offering greater
pleasures in the unrestrained pursuit of greater profits.
The
island was fast becoming a place without order. Yet, based upon a deep civic
pride that long had united Mykonians in common cause when needed to protect their
island, I’d hoped that bedrock dedication to their island’s spiritual core might
somehow prompt them to address its new challenges.
Every
core, though, needs a compass to remain firmly on course, and recent intoxicating
times had rocked Mykonos off center. The island was now steered by external
forces driving an essentially captive community in directions most islanders
neither fully appreciated nor understood.
Mykonians had welcomed the mesmerizing benefits, while largely ignoring
or feeling helpless to battle the drawbacks rapidly erasing its old ways and
values.
Mykonos
is no longer what it once was. In many ways that’s good for the Mykonians. But in other ways it’s not. It has become the
most celebrated tourist draw for the legendary Greek Summer Island Experience. It’s
also become a target of deep criticism for the media.
This
past week an article by Ilias Bellos appeared in “Ekathimerini” (Greece’s paper
of record) titled, “Mykonos
falls victim to its own success,” citing statistics supporting a dramatic
falloff in airplane seat bookings to the island, compared to a significant rise
in those same statistics for Greece as a whole.
Here's
what Mr. Bellos, has to say about what that all means. It’s an analysis that should
not surprise any Mykonian, except insofar as to underscore how their treasured past
and descendants’ future is being sacrificed to the present.
So, what is ailing Mykonos? Is it the overtourism, high prices,
inadequate infrastructure and rising crime that come as a result of resounding
success at so many international destinations?
“Mykonos has clearly been in a correction phase since last year,
resulting from the extremely demanding pricing policies of all of the tourism
businesses on the island, as well as from defamation by visitors and the
inevitable mistakes,” a hotelier with a significant number of units at this and
other summer destinations told Kathimerini on condition of anonymity.
“When the magnifying glass of social media is on you for all the
right reasons, it will also draw an equal amount of attention, if not more, to
the bad things,” said another businessman who works on the island.
Both are, nevertheless, optimistic that this year’s performance
will not be as bad as the data so far indicate, but also that a self-correction
in the private sector will lead to a rebound.
Many more believe that the Mykonos brand is too strong to fail
and can ride out what may be nothing more than a short-lived crisis. Where is
the negative sentiment coming from, though? It is the result of a combination
of factors. In one case, for example, global influencer Gigi Hadid was burgled
while holidaying on the island in 2019 and advised her millions of followers
not to travel to the Greek island.
Inadequate infrastructure is another issue, as many
holidaymakers have witnessed in previous years when the island’s waste
management system overflowed. Crime, particularly robberies, is another problem
that has been mentioned as contributing to Mykonos’ declining allure.
On the upside, satisfaction with Mykonos’ hotel infrastructure
remains among the highest in the Mediterranean, according to INSETE’s findings.
Negative publicity and a drop in demand for traveling to the
island is, therefore, also interpreted as a reproof for the services offered
beyond the hotels, such as at certain beach bars and restaurants or stores.
“One bad apple can spoil the entire barrel,” said one top-league Greek hotelier
who believes Mykonos is suffering from a reputation problem.
Others think the dip is the inevitable result of overtourism and
high prices. “The phenomenon is not endemic to Mykonos. We have seen the same
thing happen at other famous destinations, such as Spain’s Ibiza, for example,”
said another hotelier on the island who, like the others, spoke to Kathimerini
on condition of anonymity.
“A handful of businesspeople, restaurateurs and beach club
managers did not pay as much attention as they should have to the standards of
the services they offer and focused only on making as much money as possible,”
the same hotelier said, adding that “in today’s world, it is only a matter of
seconds before every oversight and incident is made known across the world
because of social media.”
Outrageously high bills, nontransparent pricing policies,
poor service and security matters are among the problems that get a lot of
publicity on social media platforms.
“Like other destinations before it, Mykonos has fallen
victim to its success, though temporarily,” a local businessman argued, arguing
that the arrival of the super-rich set on the island brought its followers, but
also criminal elements. Pickpockets, thieves slipping expensive watches off
people’s wrists as they stroll around packed Matogianni Street or party at a
nightclub, but also robbers, who break into people’s rooms and villas to grab
what they can regardless of whether the tenant is in, and serious drug rackets
are the most frequent subject of complaints about rising crime on the island.
This is also attributed to the lack of policing, which
became widely apparent last year and prompted law enforcement authorities to
dispatch a special unit to Mykonos.
The initiative, however, was geared more toward protecting
state workers from violence than cracking down on crime more generally.
“Mykonos is a victim of defamation but it will bounce back
stronger because the businesspeople on this island are serious professionals
who have successfully diagnosed the problem and are doing what is necessary to
make it right,” an economist specializing in tourism told Kathimerini.
“Self-corrective initiatives are already under way and the serious
professionals and healthy businesses are exerting pressure on those who fail to
understand what needs to be done.”
This optimism for Mykonos’ future is shared by many Greek
and foreign investment funds and luxury hotel management firms which are in the
process of carrying out major investments, worth hundreds of millions of euros,
in new comprehensive tourism complexes.
For others, overdevelopment and burgeoning construction
are a key part of the problem.
Either way, no one can deny that the idealized image of
Mykonos with its sugar-cube houses, picturesque windmills and colorful fishing
boats bobbing on the sparkling blue waters is at risk of being lost in the
throngs of visitors who descend on the island each year.
What’s more, many of these visitors are day-tourists who
contribute almost nothing to the tourism economy’s turnover.
According to sources, efforts are indeed under way to set
a cap on the number of cruise ships and cruise passengers stopping at Mykonos.
We shall see what we shall
see. Or not.
–Jeff
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