Santorini’s whitewashed streets will be teeming with millions of visitors this summer, but not everyone on the Greek island will be thrilled to see them.
“Tourism is destroying the vineyards,” winemaker Matthew Argyros said in an interview. “I’m sending a warning to the island.” His family winery, founded in 1903, produces from about a quarter of the island’s vineyards, and he warns that farmland prices in the area have skyrocketed as developers clamor for more vacation rentals.
According to data collected by the Santorini Winemakers Association, Santorini grape production has fallen by almost 50% over the past 20 years, an average of 2.7% per year. Without some form of intervention, production risks falling to zero by 2041, according to the island’s winemakers. Argyros said water shortages have made it harder to grow vines, and over the years, the island has lost most of its workers to the tourism industry.
From her balcony in the hilltop village of Pyrgos, Antonia Nusia could once see grapes growing all the way to the coast. Now, she says, “there are only small vineyards left.”
“You see people carrying sheets and breakfast items, and it doesn’t feel like a town,” said Nusia, a senior lecturer in urban design and planning at London South Bank University. She lives on the island for half the year, where she spent all her summers as a child. In winter, when the tourists disappear, the locals rely on one small grocery store.
Tourism has accelerated across Europe since the pandemic, exacerbating supply issues, congested streets and economic imbalances in hotspots like Santorini. Some places are trying to ease the pressure with visitor fees, caps and even temporary bans, but signs of success are limited as a record-breaking summer begins.
According to Mayor Nikos Giorgios, “It’s going to be a very bad year for Santorini.” He added that the island can’t afford “one more single bed” for accommodation, and stressed that this will still be the case even if infrastructure is improved to cope with a larger number of islands. Since the municipality cannot impose a building ban, he wants the Athens government to take action.
Giorgios said he expected 3.4 million tourists to visit Santorini this summer, despite local authorities asking for a cap on the number of visitors since 2012.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has acknowledged that the region faces a problem of “overtourism.” He announced plans in June to limit cruise ships to the country’s most popular islands. “I think we’ll do that next year,” Mitsotakis said. interview At that time.
The new rules could limit the total number of island anchorages or introduce a bidding process for slots, the latest proposal to limit day-trippers from cruise ships.
Zorzos previously capped cruise visitors at 8,000 per day, but this was canceled during the pandemic and recently re-imposed, so the overall impact on tourist numbers is unclear. Santorini’s municipality has also managed to reduce the number of days each cruise ship can visit the island from 63 this season to 48. This number is expected to be further reduced next year.
The Greek central government is also looking to impose restrictions on short-term rentals in crowded areas, including most of the major destinations in the Aegean and Ionian islands. The government has drafted a bill currently under public consultation that would link short-term rental prices to the number of hotels available in each area.
The European Commission has acknowledged the island’s problems, saying in a 2018 report that visitors brought €1 billion ($1.1 billion) a year to Santorini and that the population had grown to a peak of 107.8 tourists per 100 inhabitants. The report’s authors wrote that some of the negative impacts “have lasting effects on the island and the local community.”
Summer protests
It’s a sentiment shared by other communities living among Europe’s star attractions. Venice is the Introduced an admission fee And large, noisy groups have been banned from entering. In Mallorca and the Canary Islands in Spain, locals have protested to reclaim their space from visitors. Barcelona It has also become a focus of anger at residents being pushed out by tourism.
In some places, emergency measures have been taken after local infrastructure collapsed under the strain. In late June, the mayor of the Italian island of Capri banned tourists from entering the country due to severe water shortages, but the measures were reportedly eased a day later when supplies were restored. Local Media.
“The problem is not limited to a few islands, and it’s not just Greece,” said Ioannis Spillanis, an assistant professor at the University of the Aegean. “The problem has been so obvious since at least 2018, but when the pandemic hit, we forgot about it and rushed to revive travel and tourism to make up for the damage.”
In the summer of 2023, Greeks reclaimed their beaches from sun loungers and beach bars, a protest known as the “Towel Movement.” The government has adopted stricter rules for beach use and is enforcing them through frequent inspections. In Greece, all beaches are free to enter by law and cannot be private property.
The risks to the Greek economy are high. Despite more than a decade of austerity policies since the financial crisis, GDP is still well below pre-2008 levels. Tourism has been a bright spot, shattering pre-pandemic records and accounting for nearly a fifth of economic output in 2023, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
According to the Central Bank of Greece, the country received 32.7 million tourists in 2023, up 18% from the previous year, and in the first quarter of 2024, it received about 25% more visitors than in the same period last year.
Endangered Sites
Meanwhile, in some areas, the pressure continues to grow. In Serifos, a beach resort a few islands from Santorini, Mayor Konstantinos Levintis said no restaurants were open from December to February. “There is nothing for the locals in Serifos anymore,” he said.
Serifos, along with Folegandros and Sifnos, was included this year in a list of Europe’s most endangered archaeological sites by heritage group Europa Nostra, which cited “uncontrolled construction” and the destruction of natural resources. A forest fire is breaking out. July is a hot month in Greece.
“Tourists are in for a big surprise this year with the lack of water,” said Levintis, adding that they should also brace for worsening traffic congestion that could cause them to miss ferry departures. “They need to know that unless there is an immediate solution, they won’t even be able to shower.”
