In Gevgelija, in North Macedonia, Alexander Alexov is preparing to take the road trip to Greece. The border between the two countries will reopen on June 15, allowing travel to the Halkidiki Peninsula. For the past 30 years, Alexov has spent most of his summers at the Armenistis campsite in Sithonia.
Speaking to Kathimerini, he says he is extremely happy because he and his family will have the chance to enjoy the sun and the sea in this “magical place”. He has already reserved a place for his campervan and, as he says, “there are a lot of people in Gevgelija and Skopje getting ready to go south to Greece.”
Fabio Botta from Como, Italy, has been visiting the same campsite with more than a dozen friends for several years. It is not certain whether they will be able to travel this year due to the devastating coronavirus numbers in Italy. But he keeps his fingers crossed.
Ivanka Yosifova from Sofia has been regularly visiting the beaches of Halkidiki for 10 years. “I can’t wait for the borders to reopen so I can spend my holidays there again. It’s a great place. It’s calm, the sea is clean and the food is good. Bulgarians really like Greece.”
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tourists from across Greece’s northern border are expected to flock to the country’s beaches in the coming weeks. If Greece lifts its travel restrictions on Italy (reports on June 9 indicate that Greece will begin to gradually lift restrictions on Italian travelers), thousands of tourists from the neighboring country are expected to follow suit around the month of august.
“Bulgarians and Romanians are massively booking campsites in Greece. Bulgarians are eager to spend their vacation in Greece. A distance of 6 meters must be maintained between tents,” says a report published on a local website.
“The only way to stop Bulgarians from going on vacation to Greece is to chain them up,” said Nikolai Vitanov, a member of the country’s scientific committee tasked with managing the coronavirus outbreak. According to a survey carried out by the Bulgarian news agency BTA, two out of three Bulgarians planning to travel outside their country this year would go to Greece.
Greece tops the list of tourist destinations for Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians and North Macedonians. An estimated 8 to 10 million Balkan tourists flocked last year to the coastal resorts of Thrace, Asprovalta, Halkidiki, Pieria, Thessaloniki, Epirus, island of Thassos and the Sporades in the northwest Aegean Sea, as well as the Ionian Islands. Meanwhile, around 3.5 million visitors from Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine passed through the Makaza-Nymfaia checkpoint in Rodopi.
Greece’s northern neighbors are close enough to visit these familiar, beautiful, coronavirus-free tourist resorts without having to fly.
Tourism companies in northern Greece are working around the clock to welcome visitors from the Balkans in accordance with official guidelines. Demand for campsites is strong.
“Tourists feel safer here: they have their camper van or tent and they don’t need to crowd into big hotels,” explains Antonis Stamboulidis, director of Armenistis.
Representatives of 35 campsites recently sent a joint petition to the Ministry of Tourism requesting that the mandatory distance between motorhomes be reduced from 3 meters, as required by the government directive, to 1.5 meters.
Hoteliers and vacation rental owners in the region are also scrambling to prepare, hoping that guests from neighboring countries will bring some relief to the crisis-hit sector.
Serbian vacationers are expected to return this year to Kassandra (in Halkidiki), Corfu, Skiathos and Rhodes.
Montenegro’s decision not to open the border with Serbia this year due to coronavirus fears is expected to strengthen the wave towards Greece.
Meanwhile, the beaches of Platamonas, Peraia (in Thessaloniki) and Halkidiki are a popular destination for tourists from North Macedonia. “Everyone here is talking about when they will be able to go to Greece,” said a Skopje-based journalist.
Turkish resorts are also offering attractive packages to Balkan tourists, but their appeal is so far overshadowed by the country’s coronavirus figures.