Countries all across Europe are currently navigating their way through the gradual lifting or lockdown restrictions. The slow and delicate process is meant to eventually reach the point when we can finally say that life has returned back to normal as our societies have reopened and people are once again freely allowed outside their homes.
But the return to normalcy will take a long time – and authorities in Greece are taking this into account as they plan a summer tourist season that is bound to be anything but normal.
Adapting to post-lockdown requirements
As of right now, authorities are forced to prepare for all kinds of eventualities. Conflicting scientific evidence and advice make it harder to create well-rounded policies and recommendations – further hampering the efforts of the tourist sector to begin adapting to the changing situations.
Currently, however, there are some policies that authorities are certain will lead to some effect and are under consideration. Namely, they include the creation of a single entrance to each beach, which would prevent overcrowding, the use of special disinfectants on various surfaces that can be found at beaches (like sunbeds), imposing greater distance requirements between sunbeds and between umbrellas as a mandatory registration for their use as to prevent chaos in terms of handling.
This list of measures would allow for the maintaining not only of a greater distance between beachgoers, thus respecting social distancing rules, but would also prevent the chaos that would normally ensue – and which so far has never been an actual problem.
Pre-registration for the use of sunbeds and umbrellas could be done via an app, and combined with the use of a single entrance to each beach, they should prevent overcrowding and thus limit the potential dangers and the potential spread of coronavirus during the summer months.
Such solutions are all but necessary as Greece, a country that heavily relies on tourism, aims to reboot its economy as fast as possible.
