- Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou—Cultural Tourism & EDP Dept. Director at Edessa Municipality—believes Greek tourism faces unnecessary setbacks due to sensationalized media coverage.
- Fear-driven narratives discourage travel, harming local economies and communities.
- Weather and seismic events are overdramatized, creating misguided panic.
- Mismanagement at every level amplifies anxiety instead of addressing real crises.
- Decentralized, sustainable tourism management could provide long-term stability.
Mismanaged Messaging: A System Betting Against Its Own Backyard
Greece, a land brimming with unique destinations, is being crushed under the weight of poorly handled narratives spun by media outlets, Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou believes. Reckless dramatization and misinformation—be it about stormy skies or rumbling earth—cultivate insecurity. Subtle but potent, these messages quietly sabotage the foundation of the tourism sector. They don’t nurture resilience. They don’t educate. They erode.
First, there’s the so-called “weather panic.” Picture a snowstorm, a natural occurrence in a country that celebrates its alpine regions. Some see an opportunity for adventure—others, thanks to media-driven horror, see chaos. This fear? It’s crafted. Iconic destinations poised to thrive in winter are suddenly off-limits in the minds of wary travellers. Why? Television weather segments turned into operatic disasters: gloom, doom, and forbidding landscapes. A calm snowfall slides into a torrent of overwrought cautionary tales.
And then, there’s the seismic narrative—constant, shadowing the weary traveller. Earthquakes, small and nearly inscrutable, are painted in glaring hues. “Look!” says the news, pointing to the digital dashboards tracking micro-tremors, inviting fear where awe was once the reasonable reaction. Reports clash and overlap. Warnings whisper or shout with no clear roadmap. As Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou aptly warns, “Confusion reigns supreme when panic becomes the headline. Destinations, livelihoods—they pay the highest price.”
Entire regions crumble—metaphorically—beneath the weight of these stories, not from cataclysmic eruptions or falling skies, but from lost bookings. Would-be tourists, inundated with constant dread, choose absence. Destinations become “too unsafe,” and “unpredictable.” Trivialities mutate into monsters.
When Crisis Becomes Strategy
The dysfunction doesn’t stop at the newsroom. Structural failures thread through the state’s responses—or lack thereof. Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou remarks, “We see meek attempts at introducing tourism management plans. Yet they remain fragments, hollow measures wrapped in jargon.”
Here lies the bitter reality: survival. Not survival of the smallest family-run tavern clinging to its summer guests or boutique hotels relying on off-season wanderers. No. This is the survival of governments maintaining the illusion of action—”political marketing.”
“And should we here “applaud” the effectiveness of the government’s political survival marketing, as we applaud in billiards matches?”—Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou ponders.
The Fallacy of Multi-Network Reporting
Even in an information-saturated world, the polyphonic “freedom” of reporting threatens to destroy clarity rather than enhance it. Ironically, when the Greek media mosaic spins its contradictory tunes, it does so without grounding in prevention or credible crisis communication. Confusion breeds like wildfire. Emotion eclipses fact.
Instead of constructing reliable frameworks to manage crises—ones where tourism could coexist with nature’s unpredictability—discourse skews into the absurd theatre. The goal isn’t resolution. It’s a distraction.
What’s at Stake
Destinations shouldn’t fade into irrelevance under the weight of misplaced panic, media hysteria, and broken systems, Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou suggests. Greece is scarred by its media echo chambers, shaping fear rather than cultivating understanding. The solution lies in decentralizing tourism management and fostering sustainable solutions that strengthen regions rather than isolate them. As Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou says, “It’s not about erasing risk. It’s about demanding responsibility—from governments, the media, and the industries they affect.”
For those who’ve come to love Greece, the tragedy isn’t in the snowfall or the tremor. The actual loss comes when these treasures, battered by rhetoric, retreat into the shadows of visitor memory—misrepresented, misunderstood, and abandoned.
Read Dr. Vangelis Kyriakou’s complete column in Greek on Travel Daily News: Τρομολαγνεία και Σεισμολαγνεία … vs Προγνώσεις.
