Nika Balomenou (Swansea University)
23th May, 2024 - 7pm
Stadscampus Mutsaard, s.Mu.A2.03 - Ambtmanstraat 1, 2nd floor

Until the 1980s, Kavos was a quiet fishing village in the South of Corfu. A lot has changed since the first tourists arrived in the 1970s. Eventually, Kavos has developed a reputation of a notorious ‘sand, sea and sex- 3s’ destination for British 18-30, working class tourists. This reputation was cemented in Greece due to a group sex activity organised by holiday reps in 2003 that was reported on the news nationally and in the UK by TV programmes, including Channel 4 television programme ‘What happens in Kavos…’, which aired 2013-14. This paper presents preliminary results; results of the two first phases of this study from 2006 and 2016 and preliminary results and a conceptual approach of tourism as invasion. The lives of the local community changed dramatically in a very short time, with the changes impacting interpersonal relationships with economic interactions replacing family bonds in driving these relationships. This paper argus that the community suffered acute trauma which is still evident today, akin to an invasion. This study also looks at motivations of guests under the prism of liminality and rites of passage, examines stakeholders and power issues that inhibit change and local peoples’ attitudes towards tourism, under Krippendorf’s prism of the ‘rebellious local’.

About Nika Balomenou

Nika is an Associate Professor in Tourism and Visual Sociology at the Swansea School of Management. She is co-chair of the Visual Methods in Tourism Research Special Interest Group of the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education and Research SIG. Her research interests include visual methods and the use of participant-generated images in tourism research with a special focus on host community empowerment. Nika publishes her work in internationally excellent journals. She is on the Editorial board of the Journal of Destination and Marketing Management and Tourism Planning and Development.