Lisbon—a winner as the Greek crisis cuts into Greek vacation bookings
One man’s famine is turning into another man’s feast. As tourist bookings for Greece stumble in the midst of the Euro crisis and uncertainty about supplies of money, food and more, Bloomberg News reports that business is looking up for Spain and Portugal.
The head of the Ibiza hotelkeepers association points out that “Tourism is a fragile industry—any bad news can lose you an entire season.” If travelers “sense danger or worry they won’t be able to take money out of an ATM, they won’t go. No one wants trouble on holiday.”
And that may be happening; a major British travel company told Bloomberg that “We do see that the number of new bookings…to Greece is falling.” He also reports seeing increased interest in Spain. Spain and Portugal were already reporting increased tourist bookings even before the Greek crisis became so sharp.
I think people are exchanging visiting GREECE now for a lot of other European countries too besides Spain and Portugal. Avoiding uncertainty in travel is very hard to do though when you travel no matter where you go as i’ve found out with a lost passport and ferry strikes