Building fever grips Greece as tourism booms

It’s early morning in the picturesque village of Naoussa on the Greek island of Paros, and jackhammers are already echoing as locals ready for what they hope will be a record tourist season.

After two bad years because of the pandemic, tourist numbers bounced back spectacularly last year, and this summer the Aegean island hopes to do even better.

Construction sites are abuzz all over the fishing village with its whitewashed houses typical of the Cyclades.

“It’s crazy right now,” said local plumber Nikos Kritikos, hammering away at an old sewer pipe of a house under renovation.

“Everyone is repairing, painting... to be on time”, he told AFP.

At the house next door, where three new rental rooms will soon be available, workmen are unloading boxes of tiles and ceramic slabs from a truck.

And across the street, a complex with a swimming pool owned by a real estate fund is taking shape.

Tourist arrivals in Greece hit 27.8 million last year, an 89.3-percent increase over the previous year, according to the Bank of Greece.

Revenue this year is expected to match that high of 17.6 billion euros, according to the association of Greek tourism enterprises.

“The tourist season this year will be the best ever,” said Paros mayor Markos Kovaios, with the island’s permanent population of 15,000 increasing five fold last summer.

Tourism accounts for nearly a quarter of Greece’s GNP, and has been instrumental in helping to shore up the country’s economy during the pandemic.

But as with other European travel hotspots such as Barcelona and Venice, some are beginning to wonder whether the tourism boom has gone too far.