If it seems like bash the tourism establishment week on Argophilia, your intuition and observation powers are correct. One of today’s most significant cases comes directly from Greece’s most famous news media outlet, Kathimerini. Big corporate sponsors in the travel game have sponsored a high dollar (euro) reputation management tool called Reimagine Tourism (dot gr). Before I go on, please think about this.
Reimagine Tourism from Kathimerini grabs site visitors with the slogan – “A tourism paradigm shift for Greece.” The professed aim is to “harmonize growth and conservation,” which everyone in public relations understands is more hype and fluff. Combining these two actions into anything real is impossible because of the concept of corporate growth.
Reimagining Hypertourism!
Let’s move on to some entertaining (or sickening) lessons and jargon from the famous media company run by Alexis Papahelas. We should probably mention that Papahelas is a member of the notorious Bilderberg Club, which might explain the brotherly corporate lean I discuss here. A quote directly from Reimagine Tourism’s landing page fits nicely here:
Our mission is to unite thought leaders, advocates, change-makers and innovators in a dynamic forum aimed at reshaping the future of Greek tourism.
Let’s look at the statement of Kathimerini’s Executive Director reflecting his views on what needs to be done to protect Greece and grow tourism all at once. First and funniest, the award-winning journalist who runs Kathimerini uses illegal sunbeds and umbrellas to describe one side of a paradoxical situation in Greece, when whole islands being transformed into deserts seems direr to most. The mantra “the truth lies somewhere in the middle” is tossed around too liberally. But Greece’s exaggerated swings seldom leave room for nuanced dialogue. Tourism isn’t all sunshine, nor is it all doom. Does it need fixing? Sure. Does it need an eulogy? Hardly. The hypocrisy, misinformation, and propaganda do not stop there.
As a perfect example of misguidance and misdirection in the media, we have Thodoris Georgankopoulos’s “The paradox of Greece’s most popular destination.” This “report,” presented in PDF form by Kathimerini’s Reimagine Tourism site, sugarcoats the Mykonos overtourism catastrophe. The author immediately lets the reader know the “truth” he or she is about to consume when reading the sub-headline:
After a series of record-breaking years, the island is seeing a decline in arrivals, but visitor satisfaction remains high.
I’ll address the graphs, charts, and companies providing the “desired” data in a moment. First, it is essential to analyse what this skilled author accomplishes in the lead. Georgakopoulos is supposed to present the paradox of overtourism and tourism growth objectively. Only this is not what he does. His lead tells us that Mykonos is no longer overrun with tourists, and if travelers choose the party island, they will be delighted with the experience. Sneaky/brilliant, huh? It gets better.
The graphs are a big, juicy hook for not only holidaymakers casually passing through Kathimerini’s Rethink, but they are just what the would-be investor needs to see. Mykonos is in a three-year trend by NPS, lording it over destinations like Santorini, Sardinia, Saint-Tropez, and Ibiza. But wait, who and what is NPS, and why were they retained to conduct a visitor satisfaction index in the first place? (Kathimerini is hating me already, I just know it) Maybe the movement by Kathimerini should be renamed to “Rebooting Greek Island Tourism!” Pretty soon, the campaign will have to be about resurrection, in my view.
A Numbers Racket
Let me be a nice guy and plug a firm that helps businesses conduct these magical customer surveys. If you look at the Survey Sparrow ad at the top of the first Google search engine results page (SERP), you’ll find an AI-powered suite that hoteliers, destinations, or butcher shops can use for things like reputation management, etc. The AI-powered suite I mentioned offers astonishing tools to help businesses improve their bottom line. If it is not already obvious, the point is that NPS indexes can be sliced and diced to prove whatever you want to establish. Before reading on, take a look at the overtourism map below and see what you find interesting.
Big or small data is always arranged to suit the customer. And who is the customer is the business seeking a certain Net Promoter Score (NPS) to show what needs to be shown? Survey Sparrow is the best in this business, and they spend a ton of money buying the top position for Google searches. Their system, like all such systems, is also capable of helping businesses tilt the scales. So, people like Georgakopoulos, who’s a General Marshall Fund Memorial Fellow, can leverage specific data to “prove” what they need to prove. I mention the General Marshall Fund because I mentioned Alexis Papahelas being a Bilderberger. (Boys Clubs) No matter where you plop your shovel into business or politics today, you’ll end up with a very few identical ingots of truth.
Returning to the juggling of figures aspect, what NPS is used for reveals:
- Segmentation of Traveler Advocacy: Identifying groups of travelers likely to advocate and those less inclined to promote destinations.
- Benchmarking supports the identification of strategies and competitive advantages to create differentiation (as in the case of comparing hyper-touristic Mykonos to other destinations).
- Customer Advocacy: Incentivize promoters through loyalty programs and referral initiatives, amplifying positive endorsements through effective marketing.
The NPS data for the Georgakopoulos paper is derived from INSETE, the research arm of the Greek Tourism Confederation. I wonder, perhaps, as you do, if INSETE numbers would ever be inflated or deflated to tilt a tourism trend. I’ll let the reader answer that one. However, I can tell you this: a look at the web versus a selective post-visit royalty survey/offer (see Outbox Survey) gives an entirely different picture of where Mykonos is as a value proposition. Let’s take a brief look as I take my turn cherry-picking information and data (it’s only fair, right?) The following are visitor reviews of Mykonos:
- From Greeka: Sandra, “Dirty broken windows to my car and stolen my I pad. Photo camera.. My rucksack. Idiots.” Average reviews of Mykonos 4.6/5.0
- Tripadvisor: “This place sucks” via the Mykonos Forum. Mykonos Overview 4.0/5.0
- Reddit commenter: “It’s great for what it is. A place to party and have fun! If that’s what you want then it’s a great place to visit! If you want hikes and no cats it really isn’t the place for that.”
- Digital Nomad Sally Golan: “Mykonos Prices are Absolute Carnage”
Interestingly, Sardinia supposedly ranks far beneath Mykonos, which seemed strange to me when I first looked at the graph provided by “the Greeks.” A good example I found was the 1,150 exceptional reviews on Feefo. Sardinia was rated 4.8/5.0. Another interesting tidbit is that the Condé Nast Traveller Reader’s Choice Awards listed Sardinia as the best European island to visit. National Geographic conducted an anonymous survey some years back that put Sardinia far ahead of Mykonos. These surveys leveraging ratings should always be looked from multiple perspectives, especially if you really want to reimagine tourism
Erased Destinations
Looking at who’s rating Mykonos as paradise, you’ll invariably find a Greek standing behind the rating. Ironically, the Italians have not done as much media outreach or Google ad spend as Greek businesses.
To round out my report here, travel platform Evaneos has removed both Mykonos and Santorini from itineraries until further notice speaks volumes. For the first time, Greece is among the countries most affected by overtourism, as revealed by the first overtourism index, created by management consultancy Roland Berger. Another report this year, which Demoskopika produced, focused on Italy and the highest-risk destinations for overtourism. I find it remarkable that while both Santorini and Mykonos are on everyone’s lists for hypertourism, an Italy-specific report does not even mention Sardinia.
As you can tell, the truth of any question under the sun is about perspective, the actual data, and, ultimately, the leftover evidence of whether or not a person, place, or thing has been negatively affected. I looked at countless reports about Mykonos describing the garbage and crappy infrastructure once visitors got off the beaten path. As is the case here in Crete, these islands are sinking beneath a tsunami of hypertouristic activity promoted by governments and businesses. And while I understand the need for media companies and persons to make money, I do not condone misleading people into thinking black is white. As a point, as a journalist or analyst, you have to decide if you are a consumer advocate or a supporter of unscrupulous business practices—at least these days.
By the way, if your supporters count Greek airlines, German travel pirates, Greek banks, hotels, resorts on Mykonos, and ferry companies, it will be a bit tough to Reimagine Tourism with any vision other than unbridled growth.
