‘We have run out of lobsters’
A new fast-track visa procedure and high prices in Turkey are behind a surge in Turkish tourists to the eastern Aegean and Alexandroupoli
“In Turkey we say, ‘Tencere yuvarlanmis kapagini bulmus.’ Don’t you have the same proverb?” a woman from Kusadasi on Turkey’s western Aegean coast, eating at the table next to ours on the island of Agathonisi asked the waiter, making a circle with her hand. “I bet she means ‘Birds of a feather flock together,’” the Greek owner of the restaurant tells us.
He was right.
This summer, in a straight line from Alexandroupoli to Kastellorizo, wherever you sit, you hear Turkish. There has been a huge influx of Turkish visitors to the eastern Aegean islands and the trend is not only due to the fast-track visa process that gives citizens of the neighboring country the right to travel to 10 Greek islands (Lemnos, Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros, Kos, Rhodes, Kalymnos, Symi and Kastellorizo). One of the main reasons is the rising inflation in Turkey that makes the nearby Greek destinations attractive, but also the different type of prevailing tourist accommodations in the two countries.
In Greece, the majority of accommodation options are small and medium-sized hotels, mostly family-owned – and the same applies to most tavernas. Many beaches are still not organized. On the other side of the Aegean, there are large hotel chains, beaches that charge a hefty entrance fee and restaurants that are off limits.
This way, Greece is heading for a year of record arrivals from Turkey. According to data from the Ministry of Citizen Protection, by the first 10 days of July, a total of 182,000 tourists had come from Turkey, of whom 35,000 had used the visa-at-the-gate scheme that costs 60 euros per person for seven days. If one wonders why Turkish tourists would prefer this option to buying the 120-euro annual visa, the answer is simple: To obtain the latter, one has to make an appointment for the formalities, which often takes two to three months. Then they have to submit more documents, and risk not getting an approval. In contrast, the fast-track visa is issued a few days before the trip – though there is a ceiling of up to 300 people per day per Greek island.
At the same time, we are witnessing something rather strange: Many Greeks cannot afford to go on vacation to the islands of the northern Aegean and the Dodecanese this year because of the unaffordable ferry tickets, but for the Turks these islands are much cheaper than staying in their country. For example, a Greek couple without a car will pay 285 euros to travel by ferry (in a cabin) to Samos from Piraeus, while a Turkish couple will pay 60 euros, since the journey is very short.
According to the number of arrivals so far, Samos, Mytilene and Chios are the islands that have benefited the most from Turkish tourism, but not only this year. The trend has been continuing over the past few years.
“Right now about 75% of tourists in Mytilene are Turkish,” says Aris Lazaris, general secretary of the Association of Travel-Tourism Agents of Lesvos.
Lazaris, whose wife is Turkish, has direct insight into the impact of the fast-track visa measure, as he was the first to bring tourist groups from Turkey to Lesvos in 2010, when the measure was first introduced. “It helped enormously and without it we would be at one third of the current arrivals. And we have worked intensively in recent years with a presence at Turkish tourist exhibitions to advertise our country,” he tells Kathimerini.
“Those who come are well-to-do. I will only tell you that we have run out of lobsters on the island. Because when they sit down to eat, they will enjoy it; they won’t get a Greek salad like the Northerners. For me, it is important that we are professional toward them, because they return every year. If we try to overcharge them, we will drive them away. Fortunately, there is no such behavior from the Mytileneans,” he adds.
‘Good customers’
“Touristically, Chios has been clearly supported by the Turks, not only this summer, but all year around,” says Thodoris Pyliotis, local journalist with state-run broadcaster ERT. “During Ramadan we reached incredible occupancy rates. The visa helped, although we always had a tourist stream from across the sea. We used to go there more, now the balance has shifted.”
“In addition to their gentle nature, they are also good customers,” he continues. “They don’t just leave money in hotels and tavernas, they shop everywhere, in supermarkets, electronics chains, wineries. The nice thing is that these people have developed a solid vacationing relationship, they come again and again. We have friendly and cordial relations.”
Kivanc Meric, president of the Izmir branch of the Turkish Travel Agents Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB), shares the feeling.
“I won’t forget when I went to Chios after the coronavirus [pandemic], I sat in a pastry shop and the shopkeeper refused repeatedly to take money from me. The man didn’t know me. He wanted to treat me because I was one of the first Turks to return to the island. ‘We are not neighbors, we are family,’ the Chiot told me. How can you not be moved?” he tells Kathimerini. “Your islands are beautiful and the Greeks treat us with warmth.”
Meric says that the rise in inflation has bloated prices to such an extent in Turkey that it pushes many of his fellow countrymen to vacation abroad. “Until today we were economically competitive in the international market. Now we have lost this, not only for locals but also for foreigners. In areas like Bodrum the restaurants are too expensive and on the beaches many entrepreneurs have financial issues because they have a lot of expenses and little traffic. Shops are closing. I think that this year we will have a record number of Turks in Greece.”
In Alexandroupoli, the main city of the Evros border region, even though the fast-track visa does not apply, they are already talking about the highest numbers of Turkish tourists in recent years. However, local businesspeople complain about the hassle that the Turks go through before they enter Greece. “It is embarrassing that they need three to seven hours every day to go through customs and passport control,” says Andreas Andreoglou, who owns the Ai Giorgis taverna in Makri, a favorite haunt of the Turks, both in winter and summer.
“They love seafood and fish, they share dishes, they eat like we did before the financial crisis,” he continues. “Alcohol is much cheaper in Greece. Food prices in Istanbul have risen so much that it is profitable for them to come to us from the land border. Of course, our clients are very well-off, they are not concerned about prices. They love our country because they have a good time here. If they didn’t suffer the odyssey at the border, the city and the country would have benefited many times over.”
At the Grecotel in Alexandroupoli, you can always see large jeeps with Turkish license plates. “They are our regular clientele,” says the hotel’s manager, Dimitris Karavasilis. “Some Greeks say that it’s a shame that we don’t have the visa-at-the-door scheme. I disagree. The Turks who come to Evros are high-income clients, they feel they stand out because they can travel to Greece. It’s a matter of prestige.”
‘We are alike’
“The Turks saved us financially this summer as well. On Samos we had a 50% drop in Dutch and Scandinavians who usually come,” says 45-year-old Fotini Geronti, who works at her family’s hotel.
It was founded by her mother and named after her great-grandmother, Virginia, who came as a refugee from Didim, in Asia Minor. The small unit is located in Vathi. I watched her speak in Turkish, with a smile and professionalism, to the customers behind the reception desk. “I learned it in Izmir with intensive lessons because I had Turkish friends who didn’t know a word of English. I met them in the 2000s at the prefecture’s tourism organization and we used to go to tourism fairs in Izmir and in Istanbul,” she tells us. “Our customers are 80-90% Turks from Istanbul, Ankara, Mersin, Antalya, Izmir – middle-income people. Other years we had people from there, but with the express visa we saw a new increase. As customers they are good-natured, not grumpy. What interests them is where they will listen to Greek music and where they will eat squid and octopus.”
“I am often asked if we are alike. We are alike. I like them very much. We have two things that separate us: Politics and the knowledge of history,” says Geronti. “As a descendant of migrants from Asia Minor, when I hear their comments on historical issues, something inside me kicks. When I tell them that my grandmother came from Turkey with just the clothes she was wearing, they tell me that she came with the [1923 population] exchange. What exchange? She came because of the persecution, so that she wouldn’t be slaughtered! Just because we are in the tourism business it doesn’t mean we have lost our conscience or forgotten our experiences.”
