One of the most timeless images of Greece’s summer travel brand is the world-famous Santorini sunset, framed by blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.
This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters and souvenirs — and now the line to get to the viewpoint at the clifftop village of Oia can last more than 20 minutes.
Santorini is a key stop in the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.
Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, about 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 people.
“We have to set limits if we don’t want to sink into hyper-tourism,” Santorini’s mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.
“There shouldn’t be a single extra bed…either in the big hotels or Airbnb rentals.”
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As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.
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One company advertised more than 50 “flying dresses,” which feature flowing trains, for up to 370 euros ($401), on posters across Oia for anyone who wants to “feel like a Greek goddess” or take selfies.
“Respect to Oia”
But elsewhere in the narrow streets of Oia, residents have put up signs asking visitors to respect their home.
“RESPECT… It’s your vacation… but it’s our home,” read a purple sign from the Save Oia group.
Formed by a volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago, Santorini’s landscape is “unique”, the mayor said, and “must not be damaged by new infrastructure”.
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About one fifth of the island is currently occupied by buildings.
On the edge of the cliff, a myriad of pools and hot tubs highlight Santorini is also an expensive destination.
In 2023, 800 cruise ships carried around 1.3 million passengers, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
Cruise ships “do a lot of harm to the island,” said Sandal Metakidis, a Belgian resident of Santorini for 26 years.
“When there are eight or nine ships blowing smoke, you can see the layer of pollution in the caldera,” he said.
Cruise ship limits
In June, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis suggested the possibility of limiting cruise ship arrivals to Greece’s most popular islands.
“I think we will do it next year,” he told Bloomberg, noting that Santorini and tourist magnet Mykonos are “clearly suffering.”
“There are people who spend a lot of money to be in Santorini and they don’t want the island to become bogged down,” said the pro-business Conservative leader, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
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In an interview with AFP, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni echoed this sentiment and said: “We have to set quotas because it is impossible for an island like Santorini… to have five cruise ships arrive at the same time.”
Local officials have set a limit of 8,000 cruise ship passengers a day from next year.
But not all local agencies agree.
Antonis Pagonis, head of the Santorini Hoteliers Association, believes that better management of the flow of visitors is part of the solution.
“It’s not possible to have (on) Monday, for example, 20 to 25,000 cruise ship visitors and the next day zero,” he said.
Pagonis also argued that most of the congestion only affects parts of the island such as the capital, Fira.
In the south of the island, the volcanic sand beaches are less crowded, even though July is high season.
“I’m in Turkey”
The modern tourism industry has also changed the behavior of visitors.
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“I heard (the) people doing a FaceTime call with family, saying ‘I’m in Turkey,'” tour guide Costas Sakavaras smiled.
“They think the church there is a mosque because yesterday they were in Turkey.”
The veteran tour guide said the average tourist coming to the island has changed.
“Instagram has defined the way people choose places to visit,” he said, explaining that everyone wants the perfect Instagram photo to confirm their expectations.
Source: AFP