Santorini, the story of the Italian tour operator: “Rest, tourists will arrive”

Santorini, he explains, represents “a neurgic point of Greek tourism”, which “pays 5 billion euros of taxes in the Greek state every year ”. There are about thirty thousand tourists passing from Santorini to go for example to Milos, iOS, Naxos, Paros …. Closing the Santorini door to the Americans means, for many of them, to close the European door ”.

Remaining in the office, despite ”The 150-170 shocks a day, even every 4 minutes. Now they have decreased to 80-70 per day”, Chimenti saw that ” the messages and emails with which tourists ask to be able to book, even excursions on the volcano, continue to arrive ”. So ” I believe that there will be no impact on the tourist season, at most it will delay a few weeks ”. Important, he underlines, ”Start immediately, in this period, the works to increase the safety of the island by putting for example the nets for falling boulders on the caldera”.

A work that is “favored by the state of political emergency declared for Santorini, which streamlines the bureaucratic process and promotes for example access to EU funds ”. Thanks to these funds, he adds, ” It has been promised that the work will begin to build a port in the south of the island, where you can do the ferries attract ”.

By Sicilian, Chimenti explains that he is ” accustomed to seismic shocks ”, but at the same time he says that no, ” I have not been afraid ”. Not even the strongest shock, the one recorded last night of magnitude 5.3 of the Richter scale. ” We have felt it, but here all the houses and accommodation facilities are built in compliance with the anti -seismic parameters. And they are houses at a maximum of two floors ”, he explains. This is because ” After the terrible earthquake of 1956 of magnitude 7.7, with 50 thousand shocks in six months, in Santorini it has been invested in safety “and the houses and the various activities respect the” anti -seismic standards “. The important thing, he adds, is to have understood that the current seismic swarm is of a tectonic and non -volcanic nature, ” the tests carried out yesterday detected that there is no variation of gravity, nor as the ascent of the magma ”.