Tourism and the black economy
Every year the Greek people end up paying for the inadequacies of the government’s tourism policy, which is badly planned, seasonal, and has an uneven geographical focus. Recently, on a small island near the capital, a badly maintained double room (ground floor, no view, no mosquito net) was being rented for 70 euros a night because demand woefully exceeded supply. Meanwhile, seaside kiosks were selling small bottles of water for nearly 2 euros apiece. No one can deny that Greece’s underground economy, which exceeds 70 billion euros (35 percent of GDP) and robs the state of 20 billion euros a year, is the best way of boosting household incomes; this is borne out by many family budgets, where declared incomes appear to be smaller than declared expenses. But the underground economy also serves to create irresponsible and frivolous citizens, encouraging an ideological shallowness, undermining and trivializing social relationships, reinforcing the frenzy for easy and effortless material gains and spreading corruption. And the existence of this scourge does not allow anything healthy to grow. According to a recent European report, the underground economy flourishes most in the country’s tourism sector, which targets more than 16 million visitors per year and more than 13 billion euros in annual revenue. And there seems little hope of purging the sector of illicit trade. Meanwhile the semi-illegal construction of thousands of holiday apartments is filling the Greek islands with concrete. And a handful of big businesses plow their massive gains back into the black economy.
