09/08/2024 – 13:43
Greece plans to impose a 20 euro tax on cruise ship visitors to the islands of Santorini and Mykonos during the peak summer season in a bid to prevent overtourism, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday.
Greece relies heavily on tourism, the main driver of the country’s economy, which is still recovering from a decade-long crisis that wiped out a quarter of its output. But some of its most popular destinations, including Santorini, an idyllic island of picturesque villages and pristine beaches with 20,000 permanent residents, are at risk of being ruined by mass tourism.
+Airbnb ends and cruise ship limits: How Europe tries to curb overtourism
Speaking at a press conference a day after outlining his main economic policies for 2025, Mitsotakis clarified that overtourism was a problem only in some destinations. “Greece does not have a structural problem of overtourism… Some of its destinations have a significant problem during certain weeks or months of the year, which we need to deal with,” he said.
“Cruise shipping has overburdened Santorini and Mykonos and that is why we are making interventions,” he added, announcing the levy. Some of the revenue from the cruise tax will be returned to local communities to be invested in infrastructure, he said.
The government also plans to regulate the number of cruise ships arriving simultaneously at certain destinations, and rules to protect the environment and address water shortages should also be imposed on the islands, he said.
Greece also wants to raise the tax on short-term rentals and ban new permits for such rentals in central Athens to increase housing stock for permanent residents, Mitsotakis said on Saturday. The government will detail some of the measures on Monday.
Greek tourism revenue was expected to be around 20 billion euros in 2023, with nearly 31 million tourist arrivals. In Santorini, protesters called for restrictions on tourism, as in other popular holiday destinations in Europe including Venice and Barcelona.
#Greece #tax #cruise #ship #arrivals #protect #islands #overtourism
