How Bitcoin ATMs in Greece fare during a record-breaking tourist season

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Greece is glob­al­ly rec­og­nized for its touris­tic lures of idyl­lic beach­es and a laid-back lifestyle. Pri­or to the out­break of the glob­al pan­dem­ic, the World Trav­el and Tourism Coun­cil said that tourism gen­er­at­ed over one-fifth of Greece’s total GDP.

This year, the coun­try faced a record num­ber of trav­el­ers dur­ing its sum­mer tourism sea­son. In the month of August alone, the coun­try received near­ly 1 mil­lion trav­el arrivals per week, accord­ing to the Greek Min­is­ter of Tourism Vas­silis Kikilias.

A report from For­ward­Keys on this year’s sum­mer tourism revealed that, of the top ten “sun and beach” loca­tions in Europe, Greece held six spaces. These includ­ed the island des­ti­na­tions of Mykonos, Thi­ra (San­tori­ni) and Her­ak­lion (Crete), as well as Thes­sa­loni­ki. Athens, the country’s cap­i­tal, took third place for “urban” des­ti­na­tions in Europe.

In the 27 Euro­pean Union mem­ber states, Greece takes the sixth spot in terms of cryp­tocur­ren­cy ATMs, with 64 active for usage. Over half of Greece’s cryp­to ATMs are shared between Athens and Thessaloniki.

How­ev­er, the Bit­coin ATM oper­a­tor BCash strate­gi­cal­ly placed some of its ATMs in the country’s trendy island des­ti­na­tions of Mykonos, San­tori­ni and Crete. Coin­tele­graph spoke with the man­ag­ing direc­tor and co-founder of BCash, Dim­itrios Tsan­ga­lidis, on how cryp­to is impact­ed by or itself impacts the tourism sea­son in Greece.

Although Mykonos and San­tori­ni are the most vis­it­ed tourist des­ti­na­tions, the main­land ATMs have the major­i­ty of traf­fic, accord­ing to Tsan­ga­lidis — espe­cial­ly cen­tral Athens, where the first ATM was installed, and Thessaloniki.

How­ev­er, the co-founder not­ed that in Crete, the country’s most pop­u­lat­ed island and a pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tion, there is a “very loy­al cryp­tocur­ren­cy crowd.”

“There is a strong cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty in Her­ak­lion of Crete [which is] the loca­tion of one of our ATMs.”

In Her­ak­lion, the cap­i­tal of Crete, the local start-up accel­er­a­tor H2B Hub made a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Greek-speak­ing Uni­ver­si­ty of Nicosia to cre­ate and sup­port a local blockchain community.

Both Athens and Thes­sa­loni­ki have active, reg­u­lar mee­tups for the cryp­to and blockchain community.

While tourism bol­sters parts of the Greek econ­o­my, accord­ing to Tsan­ga­lidis, it doesn’t trans­late to the cryp­to scene. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the absolute oppo­site hap­pens,” says Tsangalidis. 

“In sum­mer months and high tourist sea­sons, the demand drops. But we are in the mid­dle of cryp­to win­ter that came ear­li­er this year, so it is real­ly hard to tell.”

Espe­cial­ly in terms of reg­u­lar traf­fic, the decrease can also be equat­ed to locals leav­ing for vacation.

Relat­ed: Tourists flock to El Sal­vador despite Bit­coin bear market

In gen­er­al, Greece needs more aware­ness of cryp­tocur­ren­cies and their util­i­ty in every­day life,  Tsan­ga­lidis sums up.

“Influ­ence on local tourism can be notice­able only if there is a gen­er­al adop­tion of cryp­tocur­ren­cy with­in society.”

He adds that for now, there is lit­tle to no infra­struc­ture or adop­tion from the lev­el of Greek busi­ness­es and local gov­ern­ments. “If our gov­ern­ment will become cryp­to friend­ly and if a green light will be giv­en to busi­ness­es, then adop­tion will follow.”

In May of this year, the pres­i­dent of the Greek Nation­al Tourism Orga­ni­za­tion, Angela Gerek­ou, said the coun­try is cur­rent­ly explor­ing how blockchain tech­nol­o­gy can bring about safe­ty and trans­paren­cy in tourism.

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