Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Cruise ship at a harbor in Rhodes, Greece After a summer of seemingly excessive tourism that made global news via photos of massive crowds of tourists trying to take photos of sunsets concentrated in small, popular islands, the Greek government has announced an array of measures to curb some of the many damaging effects of overtourism. Aiming to reduce the crushing strain from the arrival and trampling of millions of tourists at historic cities, picturesque villages and their communities, the restrictions echo a growing wave of protests against massive tourism spreading in Europe that was particularly felt this summer not only in Greece but at other popular European destinations. A European Concern The reality of overwhelmed destinations reaching their “breaking point,” with residents organizing serious anti-tourist protests, has crossed the limits of the affected countries.
Concerns have been growing among European Union officials over harm to communities, environment and infrastructure caused by the uncontrolled surge of visitors, as well as from the rise in real estate prices pushing out locals and the backlash against tourists brewing in a number of Mediterranean countries, particularly Italy, Spain and Greece. The World Heritage Watch , a non-governmental organisation working with UNESCO to protect sites of international value, notes that the Acropolis in Athens currently lacks visitor-management plans required under the UN watchdog's World Heritage Convention to which Greece is a signatory. Cruise ship approaching a Greek island in the Aegean Sea According to a study on Overtourism: impact and possible policy responses by the European Parliament, “the effects of overtourism are potentially severe and both natural and cultural heritage sites are at risk of losing their appeal as desirable tourism destinations due to it.
” Explaining that “most vulnerable destinations are not necessarily cities, but rather coastal, islands and rural heritage sites,” the report argues that many destinations “are being managed based on a growth-paradigm, mainly valuing growth of visitors’ numbers, without considering carrying capacity and other policy goals.” One of the main conclusions of the study is that overtourism has social, economic and environmental impact , and that the most vulnerable destinations are not necessarily cities but, rather, coastal, islands and rural heritage sites. Among the recommendations is “a more systematic research on the overtourism issue,” sharing data collection among E.
U. members on the number of tourists and day-visitors, Airbnb and other accommodation and transport mode shares that are “entities largely outside the control of destinations and policymakers, yet channelling significant financial resource flows from destinations.” It also proposes the creation of a cross-E.
U. “task force on overtourism” that should report to the European Commission, as well as the development of a monitoring system to detect the causes and impacts of overtourism. Tourists queue at the gate of the Acropolis in Athens in the summer.
Photo by Louisa Goulamak The Greek Response Among the new controls made public by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the past weekend are: Imposing limits to daily cruise ship arrivals. Hefty increases to docking fees for cruises at Greece’s most popular islands including Mykonos and Santorini, where local officials and residents have been calling for constraints. Introduction of a fee of up to €20 per passenger to those most-visited islands, a steep hike from the current charge of 35 cents.
Creation of a new climate crisis tax on hotel stays and short-term rentals from April to October, with revenues used to improve infrastructure in tourist areas. A year-long ban on new short-term rentals in three areas of Athens. Increase a lodging tax paid by hotels and rental accommodations on the islands, with the proceeds directed to local communities to help during the peak season.
Exemption from paying rental tax for three years for owners who offer long-term leases, rather than the short-term rentals. Reaching Saturation More control measures are to be announced in coming weeks related to construction on the most overdeveloped islands — particularly targeting vacation homes. “Vacation rentals and foreign buyers have also driven home prices to a level that many locals say they struggle to afford on many islands, while a wave of villa construction has contributed to water shortages,” the New York Times reports.
“We live in a place of barely 25,000 souls and we don’t need any more hotels or any more rented rooms,” Santorini’s mayor, Nikos Zorzos, told The Guardian . “If you destroy the landscape, one as rich as ours, you destroy the very reason people come here in the first place.” The construction boom, he said, had already reached “saturation point” before the Covid pandemic.
“About a fifth of the southern Aegean island has already been concreted over,” The Guardian reports. “To the consternation of ecologists, authorities in Athens approved even more building permits between 2018 and 2022, enabling construction on an additional 449,579 square metres of terrain.” To that point, the Prime Minister talked about applying “sustainability rules in everything that is built from now on and to put the brakes on islands where the infrastructure limits are actually being tested.
” Tourists waiting for the sunset in the village of Oia on the Greek island of Santorini To Welcome, Or Not To Welcome, Tourists A record 32.7 million people visited Greece last year despite deadly fires and a long heatwave — a record expected to be surpassed this year. Already, 11.
6 million arrived in the first six months of 2024. Of those millions of visitors, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to Santorini, one of the most visited destinations in the world.
Every day during the summer, crowds of tourists lined up for hours among the white-washed houses and blue-domed churches to take selfies with the instagrammable sunset in the background. Last year, some 800 cruise ships brought more than 1.3 million passengers to the island of just 15,500 residents, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
The local government has been pushing for a cap of 8,000 on the number of passengers that the gargantuan cruise ships can deliver per day — versus the 17,000 currently. That control would start next year. The tourism sector is crucial to the Greek economy, with economists calculating that it contributes more than 25% of the country’s GDP and the government worries about “the danger to present Greece as a place that is not welcoming to tourists,” Mitsotakis said.
“Tourism supports the economy with significant resources and jobs, but it must also pay its special share of social returns.” Admitting his concern about “the image on some of our islands some months of the year due to cruise ships,” he insisted that the sector would continue to play a driving role in the country’s economy. The new measures have not been universally received favorably.
Industry leaders worry that the new controls will affect Greece’s competitiveness in an industry that is vital to the economy. “Industry leaders warned the restrictions could harm a crucial economic sector, with Greece on track to report a record number of visitors for the year,” the Financial Times reports. George Koubenas, chairman of Greece’s Union of Cruise Ship Owners, told the paper that the move unfairly targeted cruise ship passengers.
“Cruise visitors don’t use local infrastructure like water and electricity to the same extent as other tourists,” he told the paper and suggested “that a flat fee for all tourists, like that levied in Italian cities such as Venice, would be fairer.” Local officials and residents of smaller islands are afraid that, paradoxically, the restrictions will divert cruise traffic to them, where they are unprepared for an influx of thousands of visitors at a time. MORE FROM FORBES Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions Join The Conversation One Community.
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