Tourism in the European economic crisis: Mediatised worldmaking and new tourist imaginaries in Greece

The article interrogates the rationale and origins of changing imaginaries of tourism in Greece in the context of the current economic crisis. We detect a radical change in the ‘picture’ of the country that circulates in global media conduits (YouTube, Facebook, official press websites and personal blogs). We enact a journey into past media representations of Greece as an idyllic peasant and working-class site, but proceed to highlight that such representations are being recycled today by Greeks (especially but not exclusively) living and studying abroad. This stereotype, which focuses on embodied understandings of happiness and well-being, is being challenged by the current economic crisis. In its place, we detect the emergence of a new dark and slum imaginary, propagated by both native and global intellectuals–activists. The new imaginary both tests in practice and bears the potential to re-invent Greece as a tourist destination. Not only is the change informed by the European histories of art, slum and dark tourism, focusing on middle-class refinement and philanthropy, it also bears the potential to promote Greece as a cultural tourist destination in global value hierarchies in controversial ways.