Wish you were here? Greece and Spain offer older Britons escape from soaring bills
It is mid-January, the new year has begun and Heraklion, the Cretan capital, is abuzz with tourists – most of them silver-haired. Over in Rhodes, senior citizens lap up the sun’s rays in the island’s elegant port town, many enjoying trips that began in November.
These scenes are not real – at least not yet. Vassilis Kikilias, Greece’s tourism minister, hopes they soon will be as he looks to make the most of an energy crisis, soaring bills and global uncertainty. “Our doors are open 12 months round, our friends in northern Europe should know this. They should head here for the winter.”
Next week, Athens will roll out a €20m (£17.5m) advertising campaign urging pensioners to do just that. “Wanna feel 20 again?” asks one of the billboards slated to appear in London and other capitals across the continent. “With warm winter temperatures up to 20C, Greece is the place to be,” it proclaims, next to an image of an older couple lounging on a yacht, wine glasses in hand.
Greece is not the only place with a warm greeting for citizens of colder climes. Tourism operators in Alicante in southern Spain and the Canary Islands are banking on “thermal tourism” to persuade northern Europeans faced with soaring bills to leave home and spend the winter in the sun.
“From what we’re seeing, people are realising that it’s cheaper to come here than to put the heating on at home,” said Miguel Ángel Sotillos, president of the Spanish federation of tourist apartments.
Kikilias has spent months working on Greece’s initiative. In September, he visited Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Stockholm to ram home the message, holding talks with pension fund managers, federations, tour operators and air carriers lined up to fly into Greek destinations throughout the
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