Kostas is around sixty years of age and still bears the evidence about his face of having been a dashing, handsome young man some decades ago. Today his girth is somewhat larger than he'd like it to be, but then, so are his worries. Kostas makes his living, correction, struggles to make his living on a beach not too far from Lindos on the island of Rhodes, Greece. If you were to go and visit the said beach this summer of 2009, you'd find Kostas sitting on an old white PVC patio chair, underneath his makeshift canopy, consisting of a few metal posts and some cane sticks bound together and affixed to the top of the structure. Cheap and basic it may be, but it serves its purpose of keeping a merciless Greek sun off his flesh in the long days during which he sits here during the tourist season.
Kostas was born in a village close by. One of five children, some of whom now live in Canada, where pastures are greener, others of whom still live in the same village as their aged parents, he is native Rhodean. Some decades ago he started making his living by hiring umbrellas and sun beds on the beach where he is still to be found in the summer season. In the early days he had a good stretch of beach, on which he would place some sixty umbrellas, along with 120 sun beds, most of which would be occupied on a regular basis all through the summer season. They were, and still are, always comfortably spaced so as to allow the occupants a degree of privacy, unlike some beaches where you can lie on a sun bed, stretch your arm out and accidentally stroke the stranger under the next umbrella.
Kostas doesn't own his stretch of beach. Each year before the season begins, he has to bid in an auction run by the local council for his patch. This costs him several hundred Euros, but he has no choice. No bid, no patch of beach. No patch of beach, no income.
Twenty five years ago Kostas and five others all put their bids in together, won their plots and equitably shared out the stretch of beach won in the auction between the six of them, so that each one would get a fair number of clients. Kostas tells me that although he used to have 120 beds, he now struggles to earn his living from less than thirty. Why?
The answer is a story that has spelt increasing misery for many Greek traders during the last few years, the increase of the "all-inclusive" resort. Each year the huge hotel which occupies the centre of the bay where Kostas has his patch garners an ever-larger stretch of beach for their all-inclusive guests' sun beds. Kostas tells me he gets depressed as he glances along the beach these days at all the lobster-coloured bodies sporting their "hospital-style" armbands which they wear to identify them as inmates of the all-inclusive resort of their choice, armbands which make the statement that they won't be spending much of their money on privately owned sun beds and umbrellas, they won't be patronising the local supermarkets or tavernas and they won't be staying in small studios or apartments, many of which have lost the insurance of their annual contract with a tour operator in recent years. In fact, many of these vacationers will only venture outside the resort's front gates when boarding a coach for an excursion laid on by, you've guessed it, the tour operator.
Kostas has a depth of woe in his eyes which wasn't there just a few years back. It's a look that will, in all probability, grow more pronounced as the tour operators aggressively continue to promote the "all-inclusive" option to their customers from the colder climes of northern Europe. He understands why many chose that option, but he also knows that it's killing the local communities that, up until just a few years ago, made their living out of the tourist who stayed in a small hotel, apartment block or village room/studio, the tourist who ate out in a different taverna each night of their holiday and thus enriched their Greek experience as a consequence.
Kostas could just as easily be the man who runs a small traditional taverna in a village not too far away from this beach. The man who now sits in a chair outside the kitchen, beside one of his rear tables, all of which are covered in their traditional Greek blue and white check tablecloths, and waits for the paltry few customers that he hopes he'll get each night while sipping at his Ouzo and puffing at a cigarette and looking at his fingernails. Tears well up in his eyes now and then as he tries to decide whether to keep his business going or close it down for good. The latter option would be the wisest one from a financial point of view. But he only knows this business and has done it for decades. His food is good. His family used to make friends of the holidaymakers who patronised his establishment. What else would he do now he's in his fifties?
Kostas may or may not still be sitting on his familiar stretch of beach during next year's season. The probability is that he won't be there, that the huge hotel just along the beach will have got their wish to squeeze out the small man. What he'll do to support his family heaven only knows. One thing though is sure, the small Greek community of taverna owners, shopkeepers and sun bed rental guys will continue to go to the wall and the vacation experience for those coming to Greece will be the poorer for it.
Kostas has innumerable counterparts all over Greece, nay the world. I make a plea to all those who come here for their holidays: think about my tale. Think about why you started coming here in the first place. If you want every resort the world over to be of the same mould, if you want a few rich entrepreneurs to get even richer while more and more small businessmen go out of business, you just keep reaching for that all-inclusive brochure.
Have a nice vacation, but go home with a clean conscience. Stay local, stay small. Kostas will probably not be in business long enough to benefit from your change of heart now. But maybe a few younger people will. It's in your hands Mr. & Mrs. Tourist.
