The Greek prime minister is mulling limits on maritime tourist traffic to the Aegean Islands
Greece wants to reduce the number of cruise ships visiting its popular tourist destinations. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the country’s prime minister, said he will place caps on how many cruises can travel to Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, Bloomberg reports.
“I think we’ll do it next year,” Mitsotakis told the news outlets.
Islands like Mykonos and Santorini popular tourist detinations. Since the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic boosted tourism overall, more visitors than ever before have been seeking out the islands. The European Travel Information and Authorisation System said last week that there were 120% more tourists in Greece during the first quarter of this year than in 2019, “even surpassing the high levels” of the pre-pandemic period.
But the islands are struggling to keep up with demand. Greece’s ombudsman put out a report saying that large investments need to be made in order to make the country’s tourism industry a sustainable source of economic output, Reuters reports.
“Our country’s economy relies heavily on tourism which makes the need to manage it in a sustainable way even more urgent,” the report said, adding that Greece must not “exhaust its potential, wasting it and making our tourist destinations unattractive over time.”
But Bloomberg reports that cruise ship traffic has increased so much that it’s crowding out other tourist visits to the Aegean islands. Those tourists might otherwise spend more money than cruise ship passengers who aren’t booking hotel rooms and spending in other areas.
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