Greece hopes to welcome back tourists from July, but hoteliers expect a bleak season, fearing the coronavirus pandemic will keep visitors away and beaches empty.
FILE PHOTO: Aerial view of a closed hotel, following the coronavirus disease outbreak, in Corfu, Greece, April 27, 2020. REUTERS/Spiros Skordilis
“Tourism is facing its biggest crisis of our generation,” said the president of Corfu’s hotel association Charalambos Voulgaris, owner of two resorts on the Greek island on the Ionian Sea. A lockdown from March 23 to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, which was effective in avoiding high rates of fatalities seen in other European countries, is expected to take a toll. Greece is now trying to save what is left of the season.
“We are going to have very low occupancy rates. We don’t know if our hotels will open, when they will open, so we are right now on the brink of very hard times,” Voulgaris said.The government will begin to gradually ease the lockdown on May 4 and hotels operating year round will be able to open on June 1.
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