The end of May, and the Greek islands gradually began to fill up with tourists. Although the slogan of a successful advertising campaign invites everyone to live their myth in our country, for some, this myth begins with a five-hour stay in the ship’s garage just because they are users of an electric wheelchair.

Although the level of access to tourist destinations in Greece is gradually increasing, the Greek summer is still largely inaccessible and open to everyone, excluding a significant percentage of the population with disabilities from many experiences and places.

“Our country lags far behind in access to a large extent to both central and local destinations,” notes Alexandros Taxildaris, President of the Perpato Association and Public Relations Officer of the Paralympic Committee. Himself a wheelchair user, he cites Thessaloniki as an example, saying that when a disabled person lands in Thessaloniki, he does not have the opportunity to independently reach some nearby tourist destinations such as Halkidiki or Kavala, since KTELs are not available until there is a train. The only way is to be accompanied by someone who drives the car. Having experience in this matter, Mr. Taxildaris emphasizes that in our country no philosophy that all types of tourism should be accessible and still – even at the level of general secretaries and ministers – the conviction that affordable tourism is a separate type of tourism. “That’s not true. All types of tourism include the concept of access. I ski. All skis should be accessible. Disabled tourism is not a separate type“, he emphasizes.

No transport available to the islands

How accessible are tourist destinations in Greece, o Grigoris Chrysikos he discovered this empirically, among other things, while traveling and filming the travel show “Cool Crips on Tour”, in which, as the description says, “two cripples, two Christians and two cameras” traveled through the Aegean. The first information about access to the islands of course, he was already contacted before the show: “A year after I left rehab, I was looking for an island to rest on and asked my doctor, who is paralyzed himself, which island was available, and he answered very seriously: England.” For Grigoris Chrysikos, perhaps the biggest obstacles come when moving within a destination, such as an island.

“There is no available transport to tourist places.. If you use a wheelchair or have any disabilities, you must drive your own vehicle,” he describes, adding that even taxis, although they are a solution for some, are not fully available as you need assistance to sit down and drive the car. a manual wheelchair, while it cannot be used with an electric wheelchair. “For example, in Mykonos, lack of accessibility is unacceptable. With this budget it’s unreasonable not to have five wheelchair vans. In England taxis are included. You also enter with a wheelchair. We are not reinventing the wheel, this is what exists,” he notes.

Only 31% of hotels with disabled rooms

Finding a fully affordable hotel is also a challenge. “Based on our licensing law, we are required to have disabled rooms and accessible areas, and this is being implemented,” said Grigorios Tassios, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Hoteliers. However, the reality for travelers with disabilities is different. According to research carried out Hotel Chamber of Greece in 2021, only 31% of hotels had rooms for the disabled, with the average number of such rooms in hotels with such facilities being 2.2. Near, only one in three (34%) have a wheelchair accessible elevator and shared toilets for the disabled in the lobby.

“The Law of Availability is very well structured, but in many cases it is circumvented either unintentionally, unknowingly, or deliberately,” says Alexandros Taxildarisdescribing a typical personal experience. Booking an accessible room at a hotel in Chania, he discovers that the elevator that takes him to the top floor has a small seat on which he ascends. This means he had to move from the wheelchair to the seat and then somehow lift the wheelchair up. “We will bring you a wheelchair,” they told me. But this is not a solution. I want to be able to leave and come back to the room whenever I want. These are elevators designed primarily for the elderly or people with walking disabilities, not wheelchair users.”

Corresponding unpleasant surprises has from time to time Grigoris Chrysikos. First of all, he mentions that handicapped rooms are often combined with an appropriate cost, since these are mostly large hotel units that are forced to have rooms for people with disabilities. “No Airbnb discussion. You also often don’t trust specifications. On one of our trips to the show, we booked a theoretically accessible room, but there was a step at the entrance and the room was too narrow for a wheelchair.”

280 accessible beaches

However, hotel access is only the beginning. A tourist with a disability will see how accessible the environment around the hotel is. Today in Greece ca. 280 beaches are wheelchair accessible through special ramps installed by Seatrac and SeaAccess. In absolute terms, this is very satisfactory, but in percentage terms they are still a minority. “Often the beaches where the ramps enter are not the best, and the ramps often enter at the edge of the beach and not somewhere in the middle of it. Also, by definition, many beaches are inaccessible because there is no road or parking nearby,” says Mr Chryssikos.

A similar situation, Mr. Taxildaris describes, also with interesting points. While central destination museums are available, this is not the case for many archaeological sites and monuments. “Ancient Olympia is 1/10 accessible and we are talking about a place that is directly related to the Olympic and Paralympic movement and should be fully accessible. Think back to the mess in 2020 with the self-evident fact that the elevator in the Acropolis was working again,” he says characteristically.

“Vacations as a battle plan”

The issues also extend to issues of access to cafes and bars, which will either not be accessible inside or will not have wheelchair-accessible toilets.

As Mr. Taxildaris notes, even from an economic point of view, when a tourist site excludes the disabled, it closes the door to the 15% of the population who are willing to spend money on vacation. However, the problem of access is much larger. “First of all, it is a matter of culture,” he emphasizes.

“The goal is to go on vacation and not need a ride or help. To have options and not have a battle plan in advance to go somewhere as a guest,” Mr. Chrysikos characteristically notes, describing a reality that must change.