If you ever wondered what happens when an entire nation decides it’s too tired to make another cappuccino freddo, welcome to Greece, 2035 preview edition.
According to Kathimerini, by then the country will be short 290,000 tourism workers — which is about as many people as it takes to fill every beach lounger from Halkidiki to Hersonissos twice over.
No Staff, No Problem
Industry executives are worried. Politicians are pretending not to be. And somewhere, a waiter who has just survived a 14-hour shift is laughing so hard he might spill the last frappe in the country.
Andreas Andreadis of Sani/Ikos fame has called for “bold decisions.” Bold decisions like what, exactly? Making siesta hours mandatory? Nationalizing sunscreen? He points to Spain and Portugal, who have started importing hospitality workers from Latin America — apparently because those countries also ran out of cousins willing to change sheets in August.
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Grigoris Tasios agrees. He wants legal migration — the kind where you actually pay people on time and don’t house them in converted broom closets. A radical idea, really.
Meanwhile, Katerina Santikou reminds everyone that the issue isn’t how many are missing but who and why. Translation: it’s not that Greeks can’t work — they just finally realized they don’t want to.
By 2035, if nothing changes, Greece will still have its blue sea, its white houses, and its five million Airbnb listings. What it won’t have is someone to check you in. Guests may soon have to change their own sheets, mop their own floors, and explain to a chatbot that the air conditioner doesn’t work.
Perhaps robots will replace staff after all. But knowing Greek hotels, even the robots will go on strike once they see the schedule.
You can have the Acropolis, the sunset, the feta, and the Instagram filters — but without people, tourism is just architecture with Wi-Fi.
So yes, Greece needs 290,000 workers. Or maybe just 290,000 reasons to make work worth doing again.