Galery

1

Anastasia Balezdrova

The first hotel for naturists on the otherwise extremely popular tourist island of Rhodes opened its doors about 10 days ago. Although this is not the first facility for this type of alternative tourism in Greece, the opening of the hotel became a media event, because of its limited development in the country.

GRReporter has contacted Angelos Mimikopoulos, who is responsible for the public relations of the hotel, to provide some additional information. It turns out that he has been a representative for Greece of the International Naturist Federation since 1996 and the organizer of the union of naturists in Greece, which is still in its preparatory stage and which will be called Gymnocracy. "I've been dealing with the naturist movement for almost 40 years now. We basically issue cards to our members that are valid in all naturist centres abroad and provide them with discounts of 10-15 percent," he said.

However, why would Greek naturists travel to other countries, since Greece has thousands of kilometres of coastline? According to Angelos, the reason lies in the small number of tourist facilities for this type of tourism.

"The reason why the tourist sites for naturists in Greece are few is the extremely burdensome bureaucracy. The attempts to establish such bases date back to 1959. They were never realized because there was no relevant law and when the state decided at last to vote one in 1983, the law contained so many prerequisites and requirements that no businessman would take the risk of turning his hotel into a naturist centre. A licence for two years was issued under this law. The first year would be lost anyway because the hotelier has to go abroad, take part in trade fairs and promote the hotel. Another obstacle was the pursuit of quick profits. So, nothing was done and naturists turned to former Yugoslavia and to Croatia and France later."

O tempora! O mores!

"They did so to mitigate the reactions of the Church and of some very conservative politicians. As a result, the fans of this kind of tourism turned to other countries that were organized, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy. There are a large number of beaches and hotels that are frequently visited by tourists from Northern Europe, who might have come to Greece if the circumstances were different. It's all about politics and advertising rather than prices. Ir is not money, but the mentality that chases away the tourists."

Angelos Mimikopoulos also said that Greece had received the first formal proposal by the former International Naturist Federation to establish a naturist centre back in 1964. "Unfortunately, this proposal was not accepted because of the economic and social situation. So, the customers just turned to Bulgaria. At that time, communist Bulgaria established two very primitive resort centres on the Black Sea and attracted all the tourists there. I guess the Bulgarian government at the time had reached this agreement with the West because of the revenue in foreign currency. They provided two beaches near Burgas, which were visited only by foreign tourists - naturists. They arrived with direct flights from Munich, Vienna and Frankfurt. The tourist packages cost them 500 German marks and they travelled without any bureaucratic obstacles such as visas and the like."

At the same time, foreign investors wanted to buy a large area in the western Peloponnese. "The deal involved Aristotle Onassis’ son-in-law too. But it failed because of the lack of legislation to back the issuance of a building permit. This was the first time when Greece could take the right actions for the development of naturist tourism. The second was in 1973 with the proposal to build facilities in the region of Thessaly. That is why I am saying that everything that is happening now has been seriously delayed."

The situation today

"Greece, being a Mediterranean country, had all the prerequisites to attract this type of tourists but did not do so. Only some of the beaches have been provided for this purpose and they were regularized only about 10 years ago. The beaches are on the islands of Gavdos, Skopelos, Rhodes and several others. The beaches in Corfu and Samos, which are used by naturists, are not officially declared as such, but the local people do not embarrass their visitors. We are talking about 61 naturist beaches in Greece but I am saying this with reservation because they may be empty today and full of people in August whereas the others I previously mentioned are officially declared as naturist beaches and have the relevant indication."
 
The oldest naturist hotel in Greece is on the island of Crete. The others are on the Ionian islands of Kefalonia and Zakynthos and in the south-western part of the Peloponnese.

"These are small private hotels that receive mostly foreign tourists. The hotel in Rhodes strives to maintain lower prices in order to attract visitors from Greece. It will be officially opened on 15 June but it received its first guests on 29 April. The interest is very high, because Rhodes is foreign tourists’ favourite holiday destination and the combination with this particular hotel is certainly very attractive.

The hotel is not large. It has 32 rooms and the prices are much lower compared to the prices of rivals. The people who have membership cards take advantage of the discount that I mentioned earlier. Moreover, people, who are not guests of the hotel, can go there during the day for a small entrance fee".