Delayed reaction
According to press reports, state bodies are struggling to impose some kind of order on market prices (ranging from a simple cup of coffee to hotel rooms and car rental rates) ahead of the Olympic Games. But the main point is that this struggle has begun just 40 days before the official launch of the Games, without any preparation to determine which areas need special attention, and without any real plan toward finishing everything on time. You would never know that the organizers had been given seven years to get everything ready! Having said that, there has always been much talk of the «major national gamble» which would offer Greece the opportunity to boost its tourism sector, attracting tens of millions of extra visitors. But little action was actually taken as everyone evidently preferred to sit around waiting for a miracle to happen. What we did do was spend a ton of cash on all manner of «infrastructure» works… And now, 40 days before the Games, there appears to be no consensus about what will be the post-Olympic use of these works – what purpose they will serve, who will manage them in such a way that the cost of their construction is recouped or that they even make a profit – which would be a welcome boost during the anticipated economic slowdown after the Olympics…
