Do you want to see a comical sight? Just go to a meeting of hotel owners and say four little words: limit all inclusive hotels. You’ll see grown men clutching their chests, crying this is the big one, as if in the throws of massive heart attacks.

That’s a fictionalized version of what happened when Tourism Deputy Minister Giorgos Nikitiadis proposed limitations on “all inclusive” services by hotels seeking funding via a new development law recently tabled.

When informed of the proposed measures, gluttonous hoteliers, who want to continue eating the whole pie without offering the slimmest slices to fellow tourism businessmen, shouted that the minister “continues to act irresponsibly” and “is consumed by amateur and futile efforts,” and that adoption of such a proposal would lead to even larger decline in Greek tourism.

In contrast, if you listened closely, you would have heard a collective shout of “bravo, minister, bravo” from almost every shop and taverna owner from Gouves to Aghios Nikolaos.