The slow Greek economic resurrection has the features of a pale northern European in shorts, flip flops and reflex cameras. In fact, it seems that it is the tourists - especially German, English and Russian - who are restarting Athens.
In June, revenue from tourism rose to 1,59 billion euros, 21 percent more than in the same period last year. The early summer boom caused takings to soar in the first half of the year to 3,32 billion, up 18 percent on 2012. This was announced by the Bank of Greece.
A change of course, the Greek one, after years of lean cows in which even vacationers wanted to stay away from the crisis. The central bank of Athens predicts that the tourism industry will grow by 10 percent this year, reaching 11 billion thanks to 17 million visitors.
To combat the crisis, the strategy of hotel and restaurant managers has been to cut prices and improve services. Added to this is a better parterre of tourists, which now also includes Russians (arrivals up by 34 percent), who - notoriously - like to spend more than the Germans and British.
