Most days of the week there's a cruise ship visiting Patmos at least once a day if not two or three times. Twice is typical. They come in various sizes and levels of luxury. Most have to anchor offshore and transport passengers into port by tenders, but once in awhile a smaller one can pull right up to the dock. Patmos has made an effort to court the cruise companies and get an increasing number of visiting ships because it's obviously good for the economy. Being a smaller island, it seems to mostly get the smaller and often boutique cruise lines. There's been no Princess or Carnival ships.
The big focus or "the point" of the stop seems to be the Monastery. Almost immediately upon arrival, buses show up at the port and cruise passengers are shuttled up to the Cave of the Apocalypse and the Monastery which is a couple of hours of tour time right there. Then, depending on how long their port call, they have typically two but up to six hours to enjoy the rest of Patmos. Most passengers look like they're killing time and wander around Skala shopping, while others go for walks or grab taxis to see beaches or a couple of smaller churches scattered around the island.
No matter how many cruise ships and passengers I see shopping in local stores, business owners seem unsatisfied. Manolis at the organic shop – who keeps touristy items out front including fancy olive oils in the rectangular metal containers ideal for packing in a suitcase – says the cruise ships are not helping much. Stelios merely shrugs. Giliakis at Flisvos near Petra Beach says cruise ships don't affect his business – it's too far away. Alas, the main gyro restaurant still doesn't bother opening during the day (which they do in summer). Giannis says the cruises are not improving business at his costume jewelry shop located at the front of town. Only the ladies at the most visible bakeries down the way from Giannis will admit to being busy – in fact for them, they're busier than they can handle and often their shops look picked over by the end of the day.
Observation tells me the cruises have more impact than most of these pessimistic business owners (except Giliakis – who is right about his location) like to admit. I've seen the customers at Stelios and people walking around with their gelatos. I see the shoppers exiting the clothing shops with bags. The problem may be more one of perception – revenues aren't yet up to peak of summer levels. But I think they're making a lot more than they let on.
"The problem is they all talk about several years ago how they made money without even trying," Melanie the caretaker of my property said. "In three months, they made all this money, so now most of them don't even want to open in April and try to make that an earning month." The property I'm staying at doesn't usually open for bookings until May 1st – although Melanie thinks they could start and make money earlier.
That does seem to be a theme I've picked up. If the money isn't enough, it's disappointing. Some businesses – like Flisvos – seem to close intermittently as they feel like because it's not always worth it to them to show up to work. Most just shrug and grouse. Obviously something is working about the cruises or whatever they call the "Chamber of Commerce" of Patmos wouldn't have been working so hard to increase the number of visits over the past five years.
Patmos seems acutely aware that it needs to hit its 20,000 peak visitors to be successful, but at the same time, too much growth will ruin the gem the island is. Previous discussions of an airport were killed off – and for good reason. The islands with airports like Santorini, Mykonos, Crete and Rhodes, transform into tourist havens and lose their character. I don't think Patmians want to lose what they have – and many are not fond of what they see on neighboring islands.
It's easy to forget Patmos has no movie theater, nightclub, consistently operating performance venue or any real nightlife – all of which can be found on nearby Rhodes. There are a few bars that are also cafes and have the vibe of a place where Greeks hang out and drink, not where people go to party. The newest trend seems to be wine bars of which I've noticed three that were not here in 2019. It's an island that invites you to either sit outside and try fancy wines – or have another glass of ouzo with the gang. Life is simple and almost wholesome.
The trade-off is that so long as tourism is the main economic activity, there's a ceiling to what the island can earn – especially if it's being conscious not to overdevelop. Service economies have limits and are subject to more turbulence. As Stefanos at Agriolivadi said, "All it takes is one bad storm or some political event and it could ruin an entire season for us."
"All we have is the sea and the sun," George the property manager and former banker told me. "That's it. Greece has not really diversified its economy. So we have two things to sell and if anything goes wrong with those, we're screwed."
George is the only Greek I know who thought the recent years of austerity measures were fair and deserved. "Look, we took free money and partied for 25 years. Then the bill came due. How you can complain? How can you not expect it? It had to happen sometime."
In my opinion, the problem is that Greece isn't even using its two natural gifts – the sea and sun – to its maximum advantage. While Europe is trying to find substitutes for Russian energy, Greece should be the sustainable energy capitol of Europe. With tons of wind and endless sun, Greece is literally an untapped energy powerhouse. This was actually pointed out to me by a taxi driver on Rhodes 12 years ago.
Our taxi driver graduated with a degree in environmental engineering – but because of the economy, there are no jobs in Greece for him right now. He says he applies daily for every job that ever posts, but so far, nothing. Most of his classmates have left Greece and taken jobs elsewhere. He's applying throughout the EU – and said that while he doesn't want to leave Greece and his family, he is open to it. He's 27, single and this would be the time, he said.
For now, he drives his father's taxi for money and I suspect he lives with his family too. As we drove along and he looked out at the sun and the coast, our taxi driver friend said, "Greece is very stupid. With all the sunlight and wind, it should be using its free natural resources to produce energy which it could use and also sell. The sun is strong all year – right here on Rhodos!"
Patmos is interesting because it's very common to have a small solar panel on the roof to operate the hot water heater – but not more than that. Given the main power plant burns fossil fuel (natural gas, I believe) which has to be imported by boat, it might makes if for no other reason that emergency planning to have more locally derived energy. There are two wind turbines smartly placed by Lampi Beach where there is not only lots of wind, but it's a little out of view of most residents and tourists.
"I know some people say the wind turbines are a problem for birds and so forth, but come on, every form of energy has a problem of some kind – it's not worse than fossil fuel," George said, "Let me tell you the funny thing about those wind turbines by Lampi. They are owned by a private company which leases the land from the municipality. Only I just learned the other day that they haven't been paying the municipality for years and no one does anything about it!" This is the corruption of Greece – the main factor that keeps it down.
Patmos' west coast is less used. The few usable beaches that exist are pebble lined and have more wind and waves than the much more popular eastern beaches. Why not put more turbines on the unused, wind-filled coastline and sell it?"
"The problem is that when these kinds of initiatives come up, the local municipalities don't want them. No one wants the wind turbines in their area," George explained. No one wants a freeway in their neighborhood either – but somehow they get built. This also doesn't address the solar panel aversion. If I were running the Greek government, I would give people an incentive to put solar panels on their roofs and maybe even free installation. Greece is years – maybe decades – behind where it could have been in the energy sector. However, Russia's invasion of the Ukraine has never given Greece a better opportunity to come in with a valuable product it could export easily within the EU.
Greece could also stand to seize the moment because of its own labor market. The Greek welfare state is strained largely because Greece has the oldest population in Europe. That's a lot of pensions and healthcare. Moreover, it's also fewer Greeks to work the economy. There aren't enough Patmians to operate the summer peak and they get workers from Athens and even other countries like Albania, Bulgaria and Poland – who they tend to treat poorly. Diversifying not just into energy, but clean, sustainable energy could put Greece ahead of the curve instead of behind it.
Unfortunately, I'm with Stelios on this one. I shrug. I have trouble imagining the Greek government seeing its opportunity and springing into action. And for whatever reasons – rightly or wrongly – I have yet to meet a Greek who thinks their government will move things in the right direction. There's a sense of apathetic resignation.
"I think this is what happens to the countries with the sun, you can take it easy because you have what you need," George told me.
That's a statement that's actually hotly contested among anthropologists and economists. Professor Jared Diamond who wrote Guns, Germs and Steel which I referenced yesterday believes that concept has serious limits for a number of reasons. the correlation of many warm climate countries being less economically developed isn't necessarily causation. We can leave that for another day.
That said, I brought up to George a great exception to his rule: Singapore. Not just because it's a country with a killer economy in a warm climate, but one that overcame the corruption endemic to most of the nations of its continent. The key, according to the late founding Prime Minister (titled Minister Mentor at the time of his passing) Lee Kwan Yew, was to pay everyone well so that they were afraid to lose their jobs. Then they could be held accountable. LKY said that as soon as police started being paid a professional wage, graft began dropping and after a few people were fired for graft – it stopped. Singapore's top leaders – the Prime Minister and top Cabinet ministers – are paid in excess of $1 million per year – with the PM having an annual performance bonus with targets and key performance indicators (KPIs) that can lead to his pay being in excess of $3 million.
Some criticize this as not having enough patriotism – it should be an honor to serve your country as a top leader, not a path to financial success. The counter-argument is that graft is about making political power lucrative. If someone's going to do it – might as well have them at least doing an honest job that's in their constituents' interest. Treat them as executives of a corporation.
Of course the real proof is in the pudding. On Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, Singapore is tied for #4 whereas in many prior years it was #1. It hangs out with countries like Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Greece is ranked 58 hanging out with Jordan and Namibia. Definitely different neighborhoods.
Change is always hard especially with something like corruption that can be so deeply ingrained in a culture and its way of doing business. Singapore's answer means paying your way out of it – which is costly at first. However, eliminating corruption can do amazing things for an economy as well as people's civil liberties and safety. Unfortunately for Greece, getting to a renewable energy sector probably means tackling corruption first. The likelihood of that seems even less likely to evoke a reaction from Stelios than cruise ship passengers.
