The alarm over the sustainability of Greek tourism in relation to water resources is being sounded by the President of the Panhellenic Federation of Hotel Managers, Giorgos Pelekanakis, through a public post on Facebook entitled Water and tourism: the most critical resource of the next decade.
As he points out, for decades Greek tourism developed under the assumption that water was cheap and abundant. Today, this assumption is collapsing. And along with it collapses the idea that tourism can continue to grow without taking its natural limits into account, he notes characteristically.
According to Mr. Pelekanakis, water is emerging as the most critical strategic resource for tourism over the next decade, warning that those who ignore this new reality are simply postponing the problem to the future. The growing pressure on water resources, as he notes, no longer concerns only island or purely tourist destinations.
He makes particular reference to large cities, wherehe stressesa less visible but equally intense form of pressure is developing due to the rapid expansion of short-term rentals. Areas of the urban fabric with a high concentration of Airbnb-type accommodations now host a visitor population that far exceeds the permanent population, without a corresponding upgrade of water supply infrastructure having taken place.
The question is not whether tourism should reduce its water footprint. That is a given, states the President of PODIX. According to him, the critical issue is which stakeholders and which businesses will act in time, and which will be forced to follow later, under the pressure of developments, regulatory interventions, and social reactions.
Mr. Pelekanakis estimates that in the coming decade water will be a determining factor in which destinations and which tourism businesses will stand the test of time. If we want tourism that has a future, we must speak plainly: water is not inexhaustible, he emphasizes, adding that reckless management threatens not only the environment but tourism itself as an economic activity.
The message concludes with a clear dilemma: Either we make water part of our strategy now, or we will face it later as a crisis, placing the issue of water adequacy at the center of the public debate on the future of Greek tourism.
