updated 10:21 a.m. ET Aug. 20, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - They aren’t packing the stadiums to watch the Olympics. Their cars aren’t clogging the capital’s typically congested streets. But they haven’t shown up on holiday islands either.

Most Athenians, it seems, have simply vanished.

August in Greece is traditionally vacation time, when city dwellers abandon their homes and head to the seaside in droves. Olympics organizers had been counting on that when considering how to ease Athens’ notorious traffic congestion during the games — and, in that respect, the plan worked.

Perhaps too well, judging by the empty stands at many events.

Athens has nearly 2 million private cars permitted to use only one lane on many major roads, with the other two lanes reserved for official Olympics vehicles and public transport. But traffic has been light. Neighborhood streets where cars normally jostle for parking spaces are now almost empty.

“Life is very difficult,” said taxi driver Anastasios Dagres, complaining about the lack of customers in this city of 5 million people. “I’m about to quit because I can’t take this any more.”

While many parts of Athens seem deserted, the city’s residents are no-shows at their usual summer haunts.

Many traditional Aegean Sea holiday islands are uncharacteristically empty. Bars and nightclubs are quiet; rental rooms and hotels have been slashing prices in the hope of attracting customers.

So where did everybody go?

“To holiday homes, to nearby destinations where they can come and go, such as the Saronic Gulf,” said Yiannis Evangelou, president of Greece’s Association of Travel Agents and Tourist Agencies. “They are taking short breaks of a few days, a week — not two weeks like they did before.”

Many simply can’t afford to go far, Athens resident Christos Mermingis said.

“For financial reasons, people have gone to their holiday homes and to their villages. They’re trying to have as cheap a holiday as possible,” the 50-year-old said.

Prices have skyrocketed since Greece adopted the euro currency two years ago, and Greeks have seen their purchasing power plummet.

Then there’s the vacation ban imposed on tens of thousands of Athenians providing services considered vital for the games, including bus drivers, hospital workers, police, firefighters and garbage collectors.

Despite hopes of higher bookings from abroad by visitors hoping to combine watching the Olympics with touring the islands, many foreigners also appear to have stayed away.

“We have had an 11.5 percent reduction in charter flights,” said Spyros Galiatsatos, president of the Hoteliers Association of Kefalonia and Ithaki, two islands in the Ionian Sea.

About 14 million people visit Greece every year, and tourism makes up about 12 percent of the country’s $1.9 trillion gross domestic product

Analysts have offered various reasons for the decline, including overcharging, the strong euro, fears of a potential terrorist attack during the games and difficulties in buying Olympic tickets.

“The Olympics, due to a lack of communications strategy — a complete lack of strategy — made consumers afraid that they would find higher prices in Greece,” Galiatsatos said. “While Greece was the country of cheap drink, of cheap food, of free sun and sea, suddenly everything became very expensive.”

Still, with the Olympics now in full swing, there are hopes that both Athenians and foreigners will start heading to the capital.

“August isn’t one of the strong months for Athens, but this year, these days, it will certainly fill up,” Evangelou said, adding that Athenians were waiting for the finals before heading to the stadiums. “Of course, we were expecting a bit more movement in early August, but the hotels ... will fill up.”

And perhaps Olympic venues, too.

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