Saturday, July 13, 2013

Whose Mykonos is It Anyway?


It should come as no surprise when a tourist destination interested in promoting itself as an irresistible draw to a targeted customer base launches an organized public relations campaign where warts are hidden, defects glossed over, and serious issues ignored.  That is to be expected. After all, it’s advertising.


But then there are those campaigns to which celebrity destinations are particularly susceptible where publicity efforts are intended to benefit the interests of a few without regard to the ultimate impact on the overall health of the community.  The most insidious sort, those which masquerade as hard news stories, offer about as accurate a presentation of reality as a pin-up photo of a Kardashian sister in a string bikini. 



Over the past week several such articles have appeared in the Greek and international press portraying Mykonos as rolling in money, untouched by Greece’s economic crisis, attracting more and better tourists than before, as pricey as ever, and way up percentage wise in business over last year.

I can’t imagine where those stories came from.  Certainly not from walking the streets of Mykonos at night, talking to hotel, restaurant, bar, taverna, and shop owners, or hanging out in local cafes for morning coffee and listening to local businessmen asking each other, “So, when do you think the season will start?”

If you’re a tourist on Mykonos the current situation is delightful, May crowds and July weather.  If you make your living off of the island’s tourism it’s a cause for serious concern. And if you’re tied to the image of Mykonos as a red-hot place for investment, it’s a veritable nightmare. 

So, who’s behind all this misinformation?  For some, the answer may be obvious, but as I see it, “Who cares?”  Whether it’s an effort to rewrite the consequences of a brutally mismanaged past, to lure the unsuspecting into biting at a misrepresented present, or to wishfully think a future into being, the end the result will be the same: Mykonians shall ultimately endure the consequences. 


Tourists can find other venues, developers other sites, promoters other hustles, but it is the Mykonian people—not those who simply enjoy its summer season or profit off its reputation—who send their children to its schools, drive its roads, use its medical facilities and contend year-round with its chronic garbage and public service problems.

For certain, Mykonos is doing better than other places in Greece, but it is still caught up in the same financial and human crises as the rest of Greece, and a forty-five day tsunami-like deluge of tourists cannot spare it from sharing in the nation’s fate.

Those who claim all is warm, fuzzy and profitable in paradise are doing a gross disservice to the people of Mykonos if their view of Mykonos gains even subtle, subconscious traction.  For example, I cannot imagine anyone living here who believes for a moment that allowing a huge, bar code-style solar panel farm to cover a virgin mountainside and destroy the breathtaking view from one of the island’s most fabled beaches (see top photo) is intended to help save the environment, any more than permitting a taverna to erect wooden decking atop natural rock formations at the entrance to the historic old harbor is meant to enhance appreciation of a tourist’s first view of the natural beauty of the scene.  Yet both projects have been approved and erected!


Tourism is the lifeblood of this island and one can bleed to death from a thousand tiny cuts just as surely as from a single thrust to the heart.

Of course, the outcome of the story will be written by the Mykonian people, as is their right.  None of the issues the island confronts is insurmountable by any measure if looked at and dealt with realistically with an eye toward what is best for the community as a whole—rather than for the few who strain so hard and boisterously to create reality out of smoke. 

Jeff––Saturday

10 comments:

  1. Truer words were never written, Jeff. Mykonos is in a difficult moment in its short history of tourism. Your blog today should be a warning to those who care about the island and the path it takes for the future. Tread carefully, my fellow inhabitants, the livelihoods we save are our own. Let's not ruin a great thing!

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    1. Thank you, Jody, for as a business owner on Mykonos you know of what you speak--an accolade I'm certain you never expected to hear pass my lips. :) Safe journey to the US, and see you back here in a week. All should be back to perfect by then.

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  2. "...to create reality out of smoke" is a wonderful, evocative image. You should be a writer. I'm third generation Irish. My grandparents left Ireland in the early years of the twentieth century. They left to escape the crushing poverty imposed on the country by the English who controlled it. They came with British passports. They came knowing they would never return. Second generation had neither the money nor the desire to experience the old country. Third generation was curious. I went in the early seventies, when in the countryside there were still homes with thatched roofs. We didn't come expecting sunny skies and beautiful beaches. We came to find the country our grandparents wouldn't talk about. Mykonos gets a very different tourist. Night life in Dublin ended before the last bus made its run just before midnight. Entertainment was a night of line-dancing at the local parish hall. Ireland went from being very poor, to having a booming economy, to getting pummeled by reality. Maybe there is something to be said for rain every day. After three months of an Irish summer, the only tan I got was on my hands.

    Irish history is fascinating but can't even be considered history when compared with Mykonos. A balance has to be found so that the Mykonians can have respectable standard of living and the past is protected.

    Beth

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  3. When it comes to memorable lines, Beth, you summed up the situation in a nutshell:

    "A balance has to be found so that the Mykonians can have respectable standard of living and the past is protected."

    There must be something in the genes that makes the Irish innately gifted writers.

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  4. Mykonons has freed my soul from the first time I visited and holds a special place in my heart. My thoughts and prayers will always be with Mykonos and its people to weather whatever storm comes its way. Thanks for writing this and keeping us informed. Cheers.

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    1. I write so much about the island that is positive, because so much is positive; positive enough that I chose to live there more than any other place on earth. BUT, negatives must be exposed and addressed for as the old adage goes, "A reputation is the most difficult thing to build and the easiest to destroy."

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  5. Just as so many people are at odds with each other, we are losing our sense of balance. We seem to be willing to sacrifice the past for the so called pleasure of the few. I would ache to see the treasures of Greece (and Ireland) and never hope to run into any of the Kardashians and their ilk.These are very surreal times, not necessarily good for us, nations or the planet.

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    1. Using "surreal" and "Kardashians" within seven words of each other strikes me as dangerously close to an ancient Greek or Celtic incantation for summoning up demons of the haunting sort...or paparazzi.

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    2. I doubt that either the Greeks or the Celts could summon anything as awful as the Kardashians. Their fame and fortune is based on Robert Kardashian's slick and slimy defense of O.J.Simpson. Isn't there a saying about apples and trees?

      Beth

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  6. I believe the mother divorced the father during the OJ trial...she later married Olympic Champion and cereal box cover star Bruce Jenner. Together they went forward with a reality TV show that I have never seen which launched the phenomenon. And if Bruce be the example, I fear what eating Wheaties might do to one.

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