Lesbos: a Greek island in limbo over tourism, refugees — and its future

The island of Lesbos has become a focal point of the refugee crisis in Greece. Its residents have been nominated for a Nobel peace prize for their empathy and assistance but worries persist over long-term effects to its tourist trade

In August 2015 the Aeolian Sun travel agency in Mytilene, Lesbos, became the unlikely epicentre of the Greek island’s refugee crisis. “People were sleeping outside my shop; these people had no water to drink, no water to wash themselves in,” says owner Maria Papageorgiou, who remains “emotionally shocked” by the desperation that engulfed the town overnight. From her window, Papageorgiou could see the coastguard unloading body bags of the drowned. “You might feel you were in Syria yourself! It was like a war zone.”

The people of Lesbos orchestrated a heroic humanitarian effort to support the refugees. An 85-year-old grandmother who fed children on the beach and a local fisherman who rescued scores of refugees from the water have been nominated for the Nobel peace prize — as representatives of the island’s collective response. Then in September the UN and the NGOs arrived and began stabilising the situation.

But around 30,000 refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived this February alone (equivalent to the entire population of Mytilene). Last weekend, on day one of an EU deal with Turkey designed to close the route by which a million people crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece in 2015, hundreds more arrived on the island, despite EU warnings of forced removal. At the same time, thousands tried to leave the island for Athens in a last-ditch attempt to reach northern Europe.

The crisis has transformed the island — even Chinese artist Ai Wei-Wei felt compelled to open a studio there to highlight the plight of the refugees — but opinion on how, and whether, it will recover remains divided. The island’s tourist-dependent economy, already stretched by a government debt crisis, is currently offset by the arrival of both refugees and international aid.

The long-term economic impact on Lesbos is unclear but one short-term problem is that the revenue flows are geographically uneven. The refugee crisis hasn’t affected the south and the west of the island, but southern villages such as Plomari will have a bad tourism season because of it.

Plomari is a village built into a hillside, where pastel-coloured houses compete for a sea view. On the lazy coastal road I pass only a man on a horse. Plomari’s mazy streets are tranquil — too narrow for cars mostly — and home to plump, docile cats who watch grey-haired Greeks water plants in their front yards. In the town square, bearded fishermen drink ouzo and smoke outside a bar. It’s this kind of Greek scene that made Lesbos a tourist haven.

Yet the current situation in Lesbos is not unprecedented. The legacy of another refugee crisis shaped modern Lesbos decisively. In the 1920s, 1.2 million Greek Orthodox Christians were expelled from Turkey, with 400,000 Muslims moving the other way. Around 60% of the 90,000 residents of Lesbos are descended from those refugees and many cite it as the cause of their compassion for today’s refugees.

Decades on, tourists from northern Europe began exploring the island’s typically Greek attractions: beaches, fishing villages, tavernas, as well as its unique ones, such as thermal spas, a petrified forest and the Museum of Trash. Tourism today is a vital Greek industry, worth 20% of national GDP, and more valuable still to Lesbos.

It sounds counterintuitive but the refugee crisis has helped some tourism businesses to boom. Half a million refugees have arrived here since August and almost all bought ferry tickets. “We had thousands of people, lines and lines, waiting for ferry tickets to Athens,” says Papageorgiou, who responded by hiring a multilingual assistant to help her new customers: refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.

Papageorgiou, whose great-grandfather was a refugee from Turkey, felt compassionate toward these new customers. Slowly and emphatically, she says: “Financially, I earned. And this makes me more sentimental. Because, in their pain, they helped me. I think I owe something to the other person. I’ve heard thousands of thanks.”

Though she is too modest to admit it, Papageorgiou often goes into her own pocket to help those who are a few euros short, her sister-in-law Niki Agiomamatis tells me.

Lesbos has seen a rapid influx of migrant workers from Europe: aid workers and volunteers keep Mytilene’s bars unseasonably busy while the UN and Frontex are block-booking entire hotels. “This year we have had two high seasons,” say Periklis Antoniou, the president of the Lesbos Hoteliers Association. “The capacity in Mytilene and Molivos is close to fully booked now.”

This will mitigate the quiet summer ahead as tourists fear encountering last year’s scenes. Hotel pre-booking is down 45%-50% and cancellation rates are 20%. And there are just 25 cruise ships set to dock this year, compared with 46 in 2015.

Some British tour operators are reporting that bookings to Greece are down 35% this year. But, a report in the English-language version of the Athens daily Kathimerini, says: “There is a silver lining for the tourism sector: some believe Greece’s reputation for offering warm hospitality will be bolstered by the crisis.”

The article quotes Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the UN’s World Tourism Organisation, who says: “The stories showing villagers hosting refugees, providing food and shelter to refugees, are very good opportunities to attract tourists.” Greek tourism professionals are at pains to stress that their crisis-battered country remains a premier holiday getaway, and the Greek government recently announced special measures to boost tourism.

Local opinion is divided on how Lesbos will fare. Katharina Korveuo runs a taverna in rural Ntipi and now boils many eggs and piles of rice every morning to feed refugees lunch. The food is donated to her and distributed by a Dutch NGO. “There is no damage,” she says. “Now the money comes in a different way. The volunteers, NGOs are here. The hotels are full.”

But Agiomamatis, who runs a car-hire company, takes a longer, pessimistic view. “We are finished,” she says. “We are wiped off the map of tourism. We are now the island where the refugees come and drown. When all this is over, and it will be over in two or three years, what are we left with?”

She answers her own question: “Tons of rubbish,” she says, referring to the “life jacket mountain” in the north, which is growing daily. “The island is actually being destroyed ecologically and economically.”

For now, Lesbos appears to be in limbo. While it remains uncertain when the tourists will return, the community is doing what it can to help the refugees. But as history has already shown, Lesbos will always be defined by the flow of people to, and from the island.

First published on 24/03/2016 in the Guardian.