I have been following up with the
news of the Greek gods melting down owing to the bad financial policies of the
nation and hence reduced employment opportunities for the locals. Tough decisions
like reducing the pensions, increasing VAT along with administrative reforms
had to be taken in the past to let the economy sustain to its current levels. This
doesn’t of course augment the huge surplus the government will get if they
recover the tax to be paid by the rich locals (who in essence are controlling
the economy and hence political that way to take that route as well…). All
these led me to think towards what will happen to one of the most picturesque
destinations in the world. The implications are high. If not in the euro zone,
Greece will be one of the third world nations and high rate of unemployment
will surely lead to a lot of corruption and hence the nation will enter a
vicious circle.
All said and done, what does it
mean to the travelers? Can people still take it for granted to travel around
Greece? Will it continue to be safe and care free? May be not unless the
government realizes that travel can turn out to be one of their main stream
incomes and employment creator. Policies need to be modified accordingly to
ensure that the income doesn’t stop there but on a contrary increases. If Greece
goes to be categorized as one of the third world countries, the expense to
travel to and around Greece will surely come down. Due to the increase in
competition, the below implications can be foreseen:
- Rich can exploit the opportunities as they have the power and reach
- For the small players, the market becomes highly competitive with low margins
- With lower margins come lower quality
- With lower quality of travel, the category A travelers reduce
- That will mean lesser income and lower employment and GDP growth
It might turn out to be as bad as
I described above. But there are every indications of the scenario turning out
to be as above owing to the steps taken by the previous government. Hope there
are better policies made by Alexis Tsipras’s team. At towards travel &
leisure industry, I think the below should be put in place:
- Categorize the travel and fix a cap and floor for each category
- Associate a government fee (apart from tax) - in turn offer to maintain standards across
- Law & Order needs to be maintained. It is easy to be carried away with other nations investing and hence taking control of the country with lesser investment in defense and education. But it is very myopic a view
- Encourage more entrepreneurs invest in the travel sector with innovative business models. The message here is to go aggressive rather than be submissive about the wrong doings of the past
