Exploring the socioeconomic effects of mass and sustainable tourism in Greece

In Greece tourism generated 20% of employment in 2006 and contributed 20% to the country's GDP. However, mass tourism has also caused a rise in pollution, a depletion of water supplies, desertification, rural emigration to urban areas, erosion of coastal areas and a drop in hygienic standards, all of which have had a serious economic costs and caused residents to protest the industry's mode of expansion. To that purpose, sustainable tourism has been defined as an overarching objective that complements the strategy for growth and employment. Leaders in the tourism industry have been concerned with the socioeconomic effects and have been under public pressure to diversify the product while maintaining economic growth. Accordingly, the purpose of the research was to explore the perspectives of the residents of the municipality of Platanias on the impact of mass tourism and the perspectives of the residents of Vamos and Konitsa as pertinent to the elements of agrotourism and ecotourism respectively. The research questions were answered by using the method of personal observation, survey of a random sample of local residents and interviews with experts on the field and residents. The answers to the three-part questionnaire were subjected to a factor analysis in order to validate the instrument and to reduce the 49 variables into a smaller set of factors. The findings indicated a desire the residents to adopt sustainable types of tourism while the assessments recorded on the socioeconomic impacts could help policy-makers apply tourism-development policies that capitalize on the identified positive effects while minimizing the negative outcomes.