The dramatic drop in tourist traffic this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic did not hit the hotel industry as many as one might imagine but also a number of other products that we may not have thought of.
For example, last month the data show that there is a rapid decline in demand for wine that exceeds even 40% due to Covid-19.
The vine growers are convinced that this year the harvest will be bitter. The year had started with the best omens. Both in January and in February, everything showed that things would go very well for the industry, until the coronavirus pandemic broke out in our country. From there on, the Greek wine market fell into disarray. As long as it lasted lockdown people seem to have chosen not to buy wine, preferring to spend their money on more essential goods.
At the same time, exports were falling sharply, as they did not want to drink outside the borders, as it seems, to forget. As a result, however, countless liters of unsold wine remained in the tanks. At the Avantis estate, for example, which is located just outside the city of Chalkida, at the beginning of the year it recorded increased sales compared to the same time last year of the order of 20%, sometimes even higher.
But as soon as the coronavirus appeared, the demand in all the estates plummeted, with the result that now the balance is trying to stabilize even at the not insignificant minus 40%. At the same time restaurants, taverns and more restaurants they have made it clear that they will not be able to buy wines this season because they simply do not have customers to sell them to. They will move with what they still have in their cellars.
Unfortunately, the same is true with beers that remain unsold, especially those that come from local breweries throughout Greece, which are usually a little more expensive. "The loss of millions of visitors to our country in 2020 inevitably significantly affects the market and the wider Greek economy. "Unfortunately, none of the scenarios we worked on are even close to last year's numbers," says its president and CEO. Athenian Brewery Mr. Alexandros Daniilidis who spoke about this at the online conference "The Greek Tourism Debate".
The same scenario prevails, however, in the field of soft drinks, which usually achieves record sales in the summer months, since more or less everyone is looking for a little coolness in them. "The decline of tourism will obviously affect the size of our company" notes from his side Mr. Giannis Papachristou, general manager of Coca-Cola 3E. However, it also gives a small note of optimism as it adds that we may seem to have at least a relative return to normalcy. In fact, because he knows that the recovery of the economy is, among other things, a matter of psychological factors, he proposes the undertaking of actions that will aim right there, in stimulating the psychology of consumers. "It makes no sense to cry over spilled milk, but to see what we can do to get back faster," he said.
Let's look at another example of a product that is significantly affected these days and may not come to mind from the first: The traditional and delicious feta. This summer, this type of cheese has been left in the barrels since few people buy it. Its sales since the beginning of the year now record a dip of 30% that seems to continue, as it is still not supplied by restaurants for their stores. Under other conditions, whole tons would be sold these days in order to compose together with the tomatoes, the cucumber, the olives, the peppers and the olive oil the greek salad as it is offered to the tourists, that is the classic village salad.. "Unfortunately, the millions of tourists we were waiting for did not come and now we are just trying to survive," said Giorgos Apostolopoulos, president of the Hellenic Dairy Industry Association (SEVGAP).
In his first time coronavirus everyone was frantically buying products from the shelves of stacked food, sanitary ware, detergents and whatever else came to mind, thinking that no one could guarantee with certainty when the quarantine would end. As a result, the shelves were filled and then sales fell as everyone had everything in their house and in a fairly large capacity.
Now the hopes will lie in the summer of 2021 with the prospect that by then we will have gotten rid of the pandemic since our scientific community promises that by the beginning of next year the vaccine or the appropriate medicine against the pandemic will have been released. Covid-19 so that all this is a bad adventure that we will have left behind. In any case, its signs will remain etched in the economy for a long time to come.