Bear: Tourists “baptize” and adopt the olive trees – French, German and Austrian are the… “parents”

THE Chrysanthos Mourtzinis, owner of the Klimataria tavern, gives his olive trees for adoption to foreign tourists, who over the years of this effort have “embraced” the initiative. From 2020 until today, 105 olive trees have been adopted by German, French, Austrian, Polish, Slovak and Romanian citizens, who spend their holidays in Ilia and decided to take part in this unprecedented initiative of Mr. Mourtzini.

“After years of friendship with our tourist customers from our tavern in Arkoudi, and after several exchanges of gifts over the years, wanting to show the love they have for our country and our region, we started this the initiative to enable tourists to adopt an olive tree in order to promote both our oil and tourism.

It is an initiative that has found a great response, it is very popular, we have already given 105 olive trees for adoption, which can come to water them and take care of them during the holiday season”, says Mr. Mourtzinis.

Adoptions continue

Mr. Mourtzinis, characteristically mentioned in the eff. “Patris” like this year, many tourists were interested in adopting an olive tree, while even schools that came to the area through the Erasmus program participated in these adoptions.

“We see that there is great acceptance. This year there were also adoptions by many schools, from the Erasmus program that visited the area. It is something that satisfies us because we see how it “ties” the people with the region, it gives them a reason to come here again and through this movement, tourism is promoted as well as our olive oil, which is a golden product”, pointed out Mr. Murtzinis.

An unprecedented idea

Speaking with emotion about this idea and how it developed, Mr. Mourtzinis commented that for foreign tourists, these trees are a “point of reference” and a “bond” with our country and the region. In fact, citing some examples, Mr. Mourtzinis described what these adoptions mean for tourists.

“We started the adoptions with a friend from Switzerland, Brigitte, who also has her own olive grove here, as her husband on her birthday gave her 55 olive trees as a gift for her age. We also have adoptions from France, from Slovakia, from Poland, from Romania, from Germany, Austria, while this summer we did other adoptions from Austria and Germany.

With the adoption that every friend of our country makes, he also gives a name to the tree, either his own, or that of a child, or a grandchild, or of some event that has stigmatized him. We have many names and in fact this year a Swiss friend, with the start of the war in Ukraine, connected the little tree she has adopted with peace and wished that this olive tree would bring peace to the world.

An olive tree was also adopted in June by the aunt of a child born in July and fifteen days ago the parents with the newborn visited this tree. I think that this is the quintessence, that is, people get attached to this whole project and they will know that there is a point of reference for them here. I think that these people are the best ambassadors for our country and for our tourism.

“This whole thing started with my father’s love for tourism. This idea came in the middle of the coronavirus and it really not only helps us with the agricultural part that continues as normal for our region, but it attracts tourists who love it and I think it has a lot of room for development. It’s a big effort that I lovingly believe will go quite well. At first it was something foreign, somewhat unprecedented, but once we started to see the love of the world for it and how it accepts it and how it asks for it, I really think it’s worth the time and everything about investment in this part, whether it’s emotional or material”

Also, this year during the filming of a show from Lithuania that we participated in, some filming took place in our tavern and in the olive grove here. Because of the Lithuania-Araksou air line, the show was filmed here where between two tourists cheap and expensive vacations take place. One of the two actors came here to the olive grove, took care of the trees and in the end the director adopted a tree which she offered as a wedding gift to the producer of the show. The producer has expressed the desire to come and see it up close and of course we are waiting for her”, noted Mr. Mourtzinis.

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