These days, the news is banged out on keyboards at media outlets and tourism company marketing departments, riddled with unholy irony and incongruity. Take the news from September, when tourism experts billed Naxos as an ideal sustainable tourism destination for the British market. Coincidentally, the biggest reservoir on the Greek island dried up in July.
As seawater seeped into empty irrigation wells ruining much of the island’s potato crop, those intent on beckoning UK travellers were preparing a familiarization trip (fam trip) to drink wine, eat cheese, and visit the best organic farms of Naxos. I was not there, but I suspect those would be the farms where there is still enough H2O to water crops. The lead paragraph from Deutsche Welle tells the story:
“Drought and the influx of tourists have led to severe water shortages on the Greek island of Naxos. Most locals work in agriculture. While the island uses desalination plants to provide water for the tourists, farmers cannot rely on this solution. Without water, some fear the farming sector could die off.”
Apparently, the British tourism gurus are not simply obtuse to the degradation of places like Naxos, they often go a step further to proclaim themselves hold ambassadors of sustainability. Some of the tourism clergy attending this fam trip were Travel Counsellor, Not Just Travel, The Holiday Village, as well as a journalist from TTG.
I am pretty sure any writer for TTG is 90% marketing content/ad writer and 10% story creator these days. TTG, which was launched in 1953 by Leslie Stone and Ted Kirkham, has now morphed into just another “events” and “awards” proposition. (get tickets here for as low as £225.00 Ex £45 VAT) The problem with media that feeds information to the public is, that the average person cannot discern what is news/fact and what is PR fluff. Anyway, Naxos, like most of the other Greek isles, has huge infrastructure, climate, and overtourism problems.
What’s happening on Naxos is NOT sustainable. Let’s just spell it out. To be continued…
Feature image courtesy Jon-Eric Melsæter.
