ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Visitors from Greece have been looking for souvenirs in the oldest quarter of Athens for some time now.
The winding streets of Plaka, designed long before the city imported a grid system, are full of shops closed behind aluminum shutters. The coronavirus pandemic drove tourists away from the city’s historic center, which forms a semicircle around the Acropolis, and the area remained exceptionally devoid of pedestrians and drivers before Christmas.
In their absence, ancient monuments are a little easier to distinguish from a distance, fewer horns sound in traffic and homeless cats parked in front of cafes are a little less indifferent.
Greece has so far imposed two national blockades since the pandemic began. The first, in the spring, kept the country’s infection rates low. Authorities called for the latter in response to a rapid post-summer increase in reported cases and on Christmas Eve recorded 4.457 confirmed virus-related deaths.
The restrictions closed bars, restaurants, coffee shops and many other businesses considered non-essential, but which represent a large slice of Greece’s tourism-dependent economy.
The number of visitors traveling to the country plummeted 76.1% during the first 10 months of 2020 compared to the previous year. Spending plummeted 77%, according to central bank data released this week.
Greece is expected to see a 10.5% contraction of its gross domestic product this year compared to the forecast EU average of 7.4%, while its debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to increase to an impressive 208.9%.
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