Βιώσιμος προορισμός — για ποιον;

Όταν λέμε ότι ένας τόπος είναι βιώσιμος, σχεδόν πάντα εννοούμε το περιβάλλον: Το αποτύπωμα άνθρακα, τα πλαστικά, τα εύθραυστα οικοσυστήματα. Σπάνια εννοούμε τους ανθρώπους — το ποιος μπορεί πραγματικά να ταξιδέψει, και ποιος, χωρίς να το πει κανείς δυνατά, μένει απ’ έξω.

Στην ομιλία της στο Sustainable Travel AGORA, η Μαρία Ηλιοπούλου υποστηρίζει ότι η βιωσιμότητα είναι εξίσου ανθρώπινο ζήτημα — και αφηγείται πώς η Σκιάθος αποφάσισε να γίνει ένας πραγματικά autism-friendly προορισμός: όχι μια υπόσχεση σε μια ιστοσελίδα, αλλά δουλειά που ήδη γίνεται, σε συνεργασία με τους Ανοιχτούς Ορίζοντες.

Διαβάστε ολόκληρη την ομιλία παρακάτω.

 

A Place for Everyone

OPENING

Good morning, everyone.

I want to begin with something simple. Think about the best trip you have ever taken. Not the most expensive one — the best one. The one you still talk about.

And I’d bet what made it memorable was not a landmark or a hotel room. It was a feeling: The feeling of being somewhere that welcomed you. Where you felt at ease, leisurely, safe. Where the place seemed -in some quiet way- to be glad you were there. Skiathos could be this place.

Now I want you to imagine the opposite. Imagine arriving in a beautiful place — sun, sea, warmth, everything you hoped for — and spending the whole time fighting the environment around you. Too loud. Too crowded. Too unpredictable. Too much. Skiathos could also be this place.

For a large number of people in the world, that second scenario is not hypothetical. It is what travel actually feels like for them. And one of the things we are here to talk about —one of the things I want to talk about this morning— is what it would mean to change that.

(WHAT SUSTAINABILITY REALLY MEANS)

The word “sustainable” gets used a great deal these days. In travel, it tends to mean looking after the natural environment — reducing carbon emissions, cutting plastic waste, not destroying fragile ecosystems by overdoing it. All of that is real, and urgent, and important.

But I believe sustainable means something broader than that. A sustainable place is one that can keep going. One that is healthy —not just ecologically, but socially. One where the community benefits from visitors rather than being worn down by them. And one where the widest possible range of visitors can actually participate in what it has to offer.

Sustainability, in other words, is also about people. About who gets to travel, and who, quietly, gets left behind.

(THE PEOPLE WE ARE NOT DESIGNING FOR)

About one percent of the population, and for some people higher than that, is autistic. That is not a rare condition — it is a different way of experiencing the world. Autistic people often process sensory information more intensely than others. Noise, bright lights, unexpected changes in routine, crowded spaces — these are not mild irritants. They can be absolutely overwhelming.

Most of the built environment — most shops, airports, hotels, restaurants, beaches, public squares — was designed without this in mind. Not out of hostility; simply out of habit. We built the world for one kind of nervous system, and everyone else has had to adapt as best they can.

The result is that millions of autistic people, and the families who travel with them, approach holidays with a level of anxiety that most of us will never experience. They plan every detail in advance — not because they’re demanding, but because the stakes are too high to leave things to chance. An unexpected change, a space that is too loud, a staff member who reacts badly to a moment of distress — these things can end a trip, and badly at that. They can cancel a family’s vacation plans for years.

And here is something worth noting: when an autistic person travels, they rarely travel alone. They travel with parents, siblings, partners, friends. A family of four that feels welcomed somewhere will come back. They will tell every other family they know. The loyalty of someone who has finally found a place that gets it right is unlike anything else in tourism.

(WHAT IS CHANGING)

The good news is that things are beginning to change –for the better! Cities around the world are rethinking how public space works for people who experience it differently. Aberdeen and Edinburgh in Scotland. Liverpool. Towns in Ireland and Italy. Communities in the United States. Quietly, without much fanfare, they have started asking a different question: not “how do we accommodate disabled visitors as an afterthought” but “how do we design this place so that more people can actually enjoy it?”

Major hospitality companies have started doing the same. Theme parks. Airlines. Hotel groups. They have discovered what should have been obvious all along: if you make a space less chaotic and more human, almost everyone has a better time. The family with an autistic child benefits; so does the elderly visitor; so does the person recovering from illness; and so does the exhausted parent with a toddler. Designing for inclusion turns out to be designing for quality.

SO, WHAT IS THIS ISLAND DOING?

I want to convince you why Skiathos — the island hosting us this week — is not just a beautiful location. It is a unique case.

The municipality here has made a commitment. It wants Skiathos to become a truly autism-friendly destination. Not a destination with a page on its website and a vague promise. A destination that has done the work: trained its staff, educated its community, redesigned some of its public spaces, and built real partnerships with organizations that understand what autistic visitors and residents actually need.

That work is already underway. Last year, the island hosted awareness sessions for its airport, its health center, its fire service, its coastguard, and its schools. There was an open public event — a community conversation simply called “We’re talking about autism.” Not a conference. Not a policy document. A conversation, like between neighbors.

That matters enormously. Because the biggest barrier to inclusion is not usually the physical environment: It is the human one. It is the waiter who does not know how to respond when a child is in distress; the hotel receptionist who misreads anxiety as aggression; the beach attendant who is not sure what is happening and makes it worse. Training and awareness change these moments. They are small, low cost interventions with consequences that spread through every interaction.

Practically, an autism-friendly destination provides a few key things. Sensory maps, so visitors know in advance which areas are loud and which are quieter. Clear, specific information published before arrival — not reassuring generalities –but actual facts. Quiet spaces in public places where someone can step away and recover. And staff, across every sector, who have a basic understanding of what neurodiversity means and how to respond with calm and kindness.

None of this requires demolishing and rebuilding. It requires attention. And the will to pay it.

This is not just an aspiration. It is a formal commitment. The Municipality of Skiathos cooperates with Anoichtoi Orizontes — an organization specialized in autism inclusion — to take this work forward together. Anoichtoi Orizontes is leading the implementation on the ground: the training, the awareness campaigns, the design changes, the tools that make a destination actually work for autistic visitors and their families.

And this work is heading toward something concrete: a formal certification as an autism-friendly destination. Not a badge for a website. A process — one that requires evidence, standards, and ongoing commitment. That process matters because it is what turns a good intention into something durable. It gives businesses a clear goal. It gives visitors a reliable signal. And it gives the island a reason to keep improving, year after year. That is what makes an initiative like this sustainable in the truest sense.

I should also mention that this programme has received generous support from the Latsis Foundation — which recognized early-on that building an autism-friendly Skiathos was exactly the kind of initiative worth backing. That support has made a real difference.

THE QUESTION WORTH ASKING IS:

Can a place honestly call itself sustainable if large numbers of people cannot access it? If the welcome only extends so far?

I don’t think it can. A destination that quietly excludes a portion of the population -not through malice, of course, but through indifference- is not resilient. It is fragile. It depends on a steadily narrowing stream of visitors, while an entire community of potential guests goes looking elsewhere.

And there is a deeper point. Sustainability is, at its core, a moral idea. We have a responsibility not just to extract the best from a place, but to leave it better than we found it —for the people who come after us, for the ecosystems we rely on, and for the communities who call it home. If we accept that framework for the natural environment, it is not a long step to applying it to the social one. To asking who belongs here. Who feels welcome. Who truly belongs.

(CLOSING)

The best trips — the ones we remember — are the ones where we felt, even briefly, that a place was made for us. That we belonged there.

The ambition of a truly sustainable destination is to make that feeling available to everyone. Not just the able-bodied, the neurotypical, the well-resourced. Everyone. Because travel, at its best, is one of the great human experiences — the experience of stepping outside your own life and into something larger. And that should not be a privilege reserved for those who happen to fit the default, the typical mold.

Skiathos has taken a first step. It has asked what it would look like to be truly welcoming — not just beautiful, not just well-marketed, but actually, practically, thoughtfully open.

That is the kind of sustainability worth building toward. And it starts with a question each of us can carry away from this event.

Who is not in the room? Who is not on the beach? Who is not at the table — and what would it take to change that, and bring them here with us?

Thank you.

Maria Iliopoulou