Oia, Santorini island, Greece
As of May 15, tourists who prove to be vaccinated or have a negative pcr test 72 hours before their arrival, will be able to re-enter Greece, coinciding with the day on which the travel ban between the different regions of the country is lifted.
This was announced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a televised speech, adding that bars and restaurants could reopen their outdoor spaces from May 3, just after Orthodox Easter.
"Our goal is to have a safe Easter and a free summer. But one cannot undermine the other," Mitsotakis said.
Despite lockdown measures in place, Greece has struggled to contain an outbreak in cases that began in late January. Today, the cumulative number of cases is 350,000 and the number of deaths is 10,668.
Greece will reopen to tourism on May 15
Tourism revenue in Greece has fallen by more than 75% since 2019, from €18.2 billion to €4.3 billion, based on data from JHU CSSE COVID-19 Data and Our World in Data. In addition, GDP plummeted 8.2% last year.
Regarding the vaccination figures, Greece has administered 3,136,791 doses, broken down into 2,191,449 with the first dose and 945,342 fully vaccinated, which represents 8.82% of the population fully vaccinated –Data from May 3, source: CSSE (JHU)–.
Last Monday, April 19, Greece lifted the seven-day quarantine restrictions for travelers from EU member states, the United States, Great Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Serbia, Israel. and some countries that are not members but are part of a European travel pact – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Back to Greece
THE FIVE GREEK LEVELS
The minister said that the Greek strategy is based on "five levels of defence": vaccination, tests at origin, random tests at destination, isolation of eventual positives and vaccination in the tourism sector.
"The protocols in the private sector are applied in an exemplary manner" , assured the Greek Tourism Minister, Jaris Theocharis, at the WTTC World Tourism Summit in Mexico.
Theocharis added that "Athens airport is one of the five safest in the world in terms of health" and reaffirmed that “cruises are authorized, with controls in the ports and on board the ships
Although Greece's decision violates European regulations on border health, the decision is based on the importance of the sector for the Greek economy. Tourism contributes 20% of GDP and represents 25% of employment and, as Theocharis stressed in Mexico, "the Ministry of Finance also needs the industry to start moving."