A postcard from Malia, as it prepares to welcome boozy Britons again
After months without a single plane, international flights are now landing once more at Heraklion airport on the island of Crete. By mid-afternoon on July 15 in Crete’s notoriously boozy resort of Malia, however, the streets are deserted. “It’s like one of those westerns where the baddies can walk right down the mainstreet,” jokes Patrice, a Frenchman on holiday with his family.
Where groups of British teens once knocked back fishbowl cocktails and raced each other on their quad bikes, now local men stand chatting or sit in cafés together to play tavli (backgammon). “It’s great! It’s like I imagine Malia was 30 years ago,” Patrice enthuses.
Since lockdown began in Greece back in March, gregarious Cretans have managed without their glendis – where thousands of people gather to listen to Cretan music – and have carefully respected social distancing. Following the rules has paid off and Crete has only had 25 cases since the start of the pandemic – and only four cases since international flights restarted on July 1. “We Greeks are anarchic in general life, but when there is a danger – a threat – we all come together; we are like one fist," says Vicky Maltabe, marketing manager at luxury Cretan resort Stella Island, which opened for business at the start of the month.
In Crete, where 55 per cent of islanders are employed in the tourism industry and social welfare is extremely limited, however, employees are eager – if not desperate – to return to work. But with a total of 100 new cases throughout Greece, bringing the total number of cases since the start of the epidemic to 3,083, not everyone is happy about receiving the British. “They had their herd immunity and look how many died – now they want to bring the virus over here?” a banana farmer from Malia told me angrily.
If local homeowners are furious that the Brits are coming, local businesses are in uproar after rumours that Greece was ‘on the verge of a second lockdown’ hit headlines in British newspapers just a few days before the long awaited travel date. Georgios Kaloutsakis, whose hotel Abaton Island near Malia was one of the first to open, says “Greece is not on the verge of a lockdown and it is irresponsible – and potentially damaging to us – to say so. The numbers of Covid-19 cases have been even less than we were expecting. For example at Heraklion airport where tens of thousands of people have arrived since July 1, only two cases of tourists have been diagnosed. Both are healthy and in quarantine.”
Although lockdown isn’t on the menu at the moment, with a recent surge of new cases recorded amongst travellers entering Greece via the Promachonas border crossing with Bulgaria, the Greek Government has confirmed that it will impose stricter controls at borders and in airports.
At George’s Bistro on Malia’s usually busy mainstreet, owner Sofokleos sits on a stool outside his empty restaurant watching the occasional car pass by. Proudly he shows me his menu full of British crowd pleasers, including fish and chips and mushy peas. “Ninety per cent of Malia’s clientele are British,” he tells me. “In Malia there are 10,000 rooms and around 8,000 are usually rented by the British.”
Like Sofokleos, many businesses that once battled to change Malia’s boozy image are now glad to welcome any kind of tourism. “We really need their money – they’re good customers for us,” Sofokleos says.
Next door in Stalida, Luke from Bristol, who’s lived on the island for 30 years, thinks that the hoped-for British tourism boom in Malia just won’t happen this year. "Local clubs aren’t crazy," he says. “They won’t want to pay huge fines for crazy partying kids when they’ve already lost most of the season. Most kids will return to Uni in September, so a lot of clubs won’t want to open and pay the big DJs for such a short season.”
