One feature of the rapid growth of tourism in Greece has been the spread of commercial operations which have encroached on public space on many of the country’s beaches, limiting the area available to ordinary citizens who are unable or unwilling to pay the often exorbitant sums being charged for their facilities.
According to the Constitution all beaches in Greece are public and must be freely accessible, while at the same time local authorities are able to auction off concessions to beach bars and other operations. Concession owners habitually spread their operations beyond the defined limits of their plot, making beaches effectively inaccessible to the non-paying public. Umbrellas and sunbeds are installed down to the water’s edge, and in extreme cases beach bar owners have set up platforms in the water where holiday-makers on sun loungers are served by wading waiters. Daily charges for an umbrella and a couple of sunbeds in the most popular spots can exceed €100.
The situation came to a head last summer when local residents started engaging in running protests to reclaim the space which they are entitled to. Christened the Towel Movement in a reference to tourists’ habit of reserving sunbeds with towels, its aim was much wider, with residents occupying commercialised sections of beach and measuring the size of concessions to check their legality.
Last summer citizens on the Cycladic island of Paros began a popular movement to reclaim their beaches, where the illegal expansion of sunbed concessions and other facilities was preventing the free enjoyment of public space. Photos: Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University/Vimeo.
The movement is variously reported as having begun in Rhodes or some of the smaller Greek islands. According to Tovima.com, the first protests started on the island of Paros with the “Paros Citizens’ Movement for Free Beaches”. Protests on Naxos, Crete, Attica and Halkidiki followed, and the nationwide movement also reached neighbouring Turkey, with residents and holidaymakers demanding the return of beaches to the people.
In response, the government promised an intensification of inspections and earlier this year passed an amended law governing access to beaches and their commercial exploitation. Under the amended law, at least 50 percent of any beach must be free of umbrellas and sunbeds and concession areas cannot be greater than 500 sq m. Beach bars must be at least 6 metres apart and umbrellas and sunbeds situated at least 4 metres from the coastline.
The law also targets a wide range of infractions such as erecting unauthorised structures, placing planters or fences, holding private beach parties and other activities which would hinder free access to the sea. Infractions may be punished by fines up to €60,000, and in introducing the law Finance Minister Kostas Hatzidakis said that intensified inspection methods would be used including new technologies such as drones.
The My Coast app
As with its efforts to stamp out tax evasion, the government has enlisted the aid of citizens in ensuring compliance with the new regulations. The MyCoast app, launched on 28th April and available on Google Play and the Apple App Store, enables citizens to check the concession status of nearly 10,000 of the country’s beaches and to report any infractions which they find. The latest update issued on 28th July aimed to cure some of functional problems which were the subject of early complaints by reviewers, though the interface remains in Greek only for the moment, limiting its usefulness for visitors. For the benefit of non-Greek speakers, clicking on a particular beach on the app’s map gives details of the:
– Nomos
– Municipality
– Location
– Start and end of the concession period
– Nature of the concession (e.g. sunbeds and umbrellas, beach bar, etc)
– Area in sq m
– Responsible planning service
– Issuing authority
– Identification number.
Clicking on the link “estiasi paralias” opens a detailed map view with a blue box indicating the location of the concession. Clicking the link with a red triangle enables one to submit an infraction report via a pull-down menu with various choices such as “obstruction of free access”, “illegal occupation of space”, “lack of life guard” etc.
Distribution of the app
The app has over 50,000 downloads on the Google Play Store and is listed as the 5th most popular travel app on the Apple App Store, but there are no statistics to date on the number of infractions reported by users. The app’s success will be measured in the long run by the effectiveness with which the government can follow up on reported infractions. MyCoast is being promoted widely on Greek TV with a short video advertisement which can also be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGPVH3N5iCs:
Against an upbeat, summery soundtrack, a bearded figure clad in shorts and a tropical shirt wanders carefree along a sandy beach, giving an avuncular wave to a surfboarder some way from the shore, only to trip and fall headlong over a sunbed which is projecting into his path.
“Ep?” exclaims the concession manager turning to see what has happened. “App!” replies the beachgoer displaying the MyCoast app on his smartphone.
Supervised by the beachgoer the manager pulls the offending sunbed back into line while a voice over proclaims: “MyCoast app, the most up-to-date way of seeing if the new measures are being observed on your beach. Because from this year we can enjoy beaches with more free space for everyone and respect for the natural environment, and we can all take care that they remain that way.”
The two men exchange a thumbs-up and a bear hug and the beachgoer wanders off to enjoy his free space.
“Ep!” he says as he lies on the sand sipping a fruit cocktail. “App!” says the concessionaire as he pulls another sunbed back into line.
The exchange, possibly one of the shortest ever in a Greek TV ad, could be freely translated as “What’s up? … What’s app!” – with a nod to Cosmote and Facebook/Meta.