Greece joins rush to win back tourists

NAXOS, Greece -- Greece launched its tourism season Friday amid a competitive scramble across the Mediterranean to lure vacationers emerging from lockdowns.

"We're all vaccinated, the tables are outside and spread out, with hand sanitizers on each one. We're ready. Now we wait," Kyriaki Kapri said, standing beside large display cabinets with fresh fish on beds of crushed ice in the kitchen of her Naxos beachside restaurant Gorgona -- Greek for Mermaid. During a six-month lockdown, Gorgona closed for the first time in its 50-year history, a pattern seen across Greece, including the nearby islands of Mykonos and Santorini.

The European Union has yet to roll out its cellphone-friendly travel pass system. But southern member-states, driven deeper into debt by the pandemic and highly dependent on tourism revenues, are not waiting.

Croatia has already reopened, as has Cyprus, joined Friday by Greece where residents were allowed to leave home without an electronic permit for the first time in six months.

Last year, the number of visitors to Greece plummeted by 78.2% to 7.4 million -- from a record 34 million in 2019 -- according to official data, with a corresponding drop in tourism revenues.

Greece is hoping to claw back half the 2019 visitor level. It's vowed to finish vaccinating its entire island population over the next six weeks and will even waive test requirements for tourists who have received vaccines made in Russia and China that are not approved for use domestically.

Malta is promising visitors vouchers to go diving and cash rebates to high-end hotel customers.

In Turkey, visitors from abroad have been exempt from stay-at-home orders applying to Turks, thus enjoying an empty Istanbul and little-populated beach resorts.

Portugal is the only southern European country to so far make Britain's so-called Green List of quarantine-free destinations. Travelers in the UK pounced on the news, according to Emma Coulthurst from holiday price comparison site TravelSupermarket.

"Week-on-week, if you compare all package holiday price comparison searches via TravelSupermarket, the site has seen an 865% increase in searches for package holidays to Portugal," Coulthurst said.

In neighboring Spain, Trade and Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said her government was in "constant" consultations with Britain to try to have its travel status upgraded.

Italy is dropping a five-day quarantine requirement for travelers from the EU, Britain and Israel starting Sunday, but many in the hospitality industry are still bracing for another tough year.