The whitewashed streets of Santorini will be packed with millions of visitors this summer. But not everyone on the Greek island will be happy to see them.
“Tourism is destroying vineyards,” wine producer Matthew Argyros said in an interview. “I’m sounding the alarm for the island.” His family-owned winery, founded in 1903, produces about a quarter of the island’s vineyards, and he warns that farmland prices have skyrocketed in the area as developers clamor for space to build more vacation rentals.
According to data collected by the Santorini Winegrowers Association, Santorini’s grape production has dropped by nearly 50% over the past 20 years, with an average decline of 2.7% per year. According to the island’s winegrowers, production is at risk of falling to zero by 2041 if no interventions are put in place. Water shortages make growing grapes more difficult, while most workers have been lost to the tourism industry over the years, Argyros said.
From her balcony in the hilltop village of Pyrgos, Antonia Noussia could once see vines growing all the way to the coast. Today, she says, there are “only small plots of vines left.”
“You see people carrying sheets, breakfast supplies, and it doesn’t feel like a populated village,” says Noussia, an associate professor of urban planning and development at London South Bank University who lives half the year on the island, where she has spent all her summers. When the tourists disappear in the winter, locals rely on a single small grocery store.
Since the pandemic, tourism has accelerated across Europe, exacerbating supply problems, traffic-clogged streets and economic imbalances in several hotspots like Santorini. Some places are trying to ease the pressure by imposing entry fees, caps and even temporary bans — with limited signs of success, as a record summer begins.
“This will be a very bad year for Santorini,” said Mayor Nikos Zorzos. The island cannot afford “one more bed” for accommodation, he added, stressing that this would remain the case even if infrastructure were improved to help the island cope with the increased number of people. The municipality is not in a position to impose a building ban, so he wants the government in Athens to act.
Santorini is expecting 3.4 million tourists this summer, despite requests from local authorities since 2012, Zorzos said.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has acknowledged that the region faces a problem of “overtourism.” In June, he announced plans to restrict cruise ships from the country’s most popular islands. “I think we will do it next year,” Mitsotakis said in a statement. interview at the time.
The new rules could limit the total number of spots available on the islands or introduce an auction process for slots, the latest proposal to limit the number of excursion passengers on cruise ships.
Zorzos had previously set a cap of 8,000 cruise passengers per day, but that limit was lifted during the pandemic and recently reinstated. So the overall effect on tourist numbers is unclear. Santorini’s local authorities have also managed to reduce the number of days each cruise ship can visit the islands to 48 from 63 this season – a number that is expected to drop further next year.
The Greek central administration is also seeking to impose restrictions on short-term rentals in congested areas, including many of the most popular destinations in the Aegean and Ionian Islands. The government has drafted a law, currently under public consultation, that links the number of short-term rentals to the number of hotels available in each area.
The European Commission has acknowledged the islands’ problems, saying in a 2018 report that visitors bring €1 billion ($1.1 billion) a year to Santorini, while the population swells to 107.8 tourists per 100 residents. Some of the negative impacts “have permanent consequences for the island and its community,” the report’s authors wrote.
Summer events
It’s a sentiment shared by other communities living among Europe’s top attractions. Venice has this year introduces an entry fee and banned entry to large and noisy groups. In the Spanish destinations of Mallorca and the Canary Islands, locals have demonstrated to reclaim space at the expense of visitors. Barcelona has also become a focal point of anger over tourism that drives out residents.
Some have taken emergency measures after local infrastructure buckled under the strain. In late June, the mayor of the Italian island of Capri announced a ban on tourists entering due to a severe water shortage — though the measure was eased within a day once supplies were restored, according to local media.
“The problem is not limited to a few islands and certainly not unique to Greece,” said Ioannis Spilanis, an assistant professor at the University of the Aegean. “The problem has been more than evident since at least 2018, then the pandemic came and we forgot about it and rushed to restart travel and tourism to compensate for the damage.”
In the summer of 2023, Greeks reclaimed beach loungers and beach bars, a protest known as the “towel movement.” The government introduced stricter rules on beach use and ensured that they were enforced through frequent inspections. In Greece, all beaches are legally free to use and cannot be privately owned.
The stakes are high for the Greek economy. After more than a decade of austerity following the financial crisis, GDP remains well below what it was before 2008. Tourism has been a bright spot, breaking pre-pandemic records and accounting for nearly a fifth of economic output in 2023, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
The country attracted 32.7 million tourists in 2023, 18% more than the previous year, according to the Bank of Greece, while the first quarter of 2024 attracted almost 25% more visitors than the same period last year.
Threatened sites
Meanwhile, pressure continues to mount in some places. A few islands away from Santorini, on Serifos Beach, Mayor Konstantinos Revinthis said there were no restaurants open from December to February. “There is nothing left for the people of Serifos,” he said.
Serifos, like Folegandros and Sifnos, is this year on the list of the most threatened European sites drawn up by the Europa Nostra association, which points to “rampant construction” and the degradation of natural resources. Forest fires have broken out in July, as the heat wave rages in Greece.
According to Mr. Revinthis, “tourists are going to have a bad surprise this year because of the water shortage” and should also prepare for increasingly frequent traffic jams that could make them miss the ferry departure time. “They should know that they will not be able to take a shower if there is no immediate solution.”
