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The owners of yachts for rent are leaving Greece to bring their business to Turkey and Croatia. As a result, the revenues of the Greek ports dropped by about 6 million and the yachts that left them reached almost 20%. The high taxes and the decline in tourism forced the nautical businessmen to immigrate with their activities to countries more friendly to entrepreneurship. The data were revealed by the President of the Hellenic Professional Yacht Owners Association Antonis Steliatos, cited by Vima.
 
According to him, over 100 yachts have found a new port in 2010, but have not yet changed the flag. He said for Katemerini that the bookings of yachts with crew for the summer holiday fell by 80% compared with last year and the prospects for the new season are not promising. The coast-lines of the competitive Mediterranean countries are larger, which also detrimental to Greece. It has 16,000 km of coast-line, while Croatia, for example, has 117,000 km.

The drop in the turnover has left over 3,500 tourist boats and yachts high and dry, while others have even taken by the banks, because without customers the entrepreneurs do not have receipts and can not cover their obligations to the financial institutions. Those businessmen, who, figuratively, still hold their heads above the water, will not hesitate to change the flag if the new higher taxes apply to nautical tourism. This market like many others was hit by the decreasing demand of about 50% in 2008.

Today, only 20% of the tourist boats work compared with the period before the last global crisis. The nautical tourism brings nearly 4% in the total receipts of tourism in the Greek economy, which is approximately 18% of the GDP. Antonis Steliatos believes that the bad image of Greece in the world media has affected seriously the tourism in the country. "Strikes and protests are held in all democratic countries," said the businessman, adding: "This does not mean that the country is not safe."

The chain reaction of the crisis did not miss hitting the employment, which in nautical tourism has reached 40% or about 1200 sailors, out of 3150 employees. Although the unrest in North Africa proved to be manna for the hotels in Greece, the same can not be said for the owners of offshore animation. They say from the Association that Egypt and Tunisia have never had a strong nautical tourism and yachting. So, the tourists redirected from these destinations prefer to have fun on land.