2024-08-05 13:33:40
On the peak days of the season, as many as 17,000 people come to the island. of cruise ship passengers who travel to the island’s most famous destinations, such as the capital Fira and the town of Oia, famous for its spectacular sunsets.
Local residents feel disturbed as tourists clog the streets where vacationers take selfies with the sunset. But as evening comes, the crowds melt away, and some complain that the island turns into a ghost town.
in 2025 the number of visitors will be determined
The mayor of Santorini, Nikos Zorzos, proposed to limit the number of cruise ship passengers to 8,000. during the day. The move was welcomed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who told Bloomberg that the measure would be implemented next year.
Gianluca Chimenti, a local tour operator who has lived in Santorini for 18 years, told CNN Travel that while social media is full of photos showing the island’s hotspots being very crowded at peak times, the rest of the time it’s a very different picture.
“The truth is that the island is empty. Now it feels like never before. This is the worst season,” he said.
The months of July and August in Santorini are the height of the tourist season, but in the city centers after 9 p.m. not a living soul remains, and the number of guests in restaurants and hotels is far from equal to the capacity of these establishments. As for other businesses, the situation is the same.
“The problem is that social media reflects something completely different than what it really is,” says G. Chimenti. Although there will be a large number of tourists visiting the island this year, there are many who are put off by the island’s reputation for being overcrowded. These travelers do not even consider staying in Santorini for a longer period of time.
The need to diversify activities
20th century in the middle and end Santorini was a sleepy idyll. Here, the inhabitants used to ride on donkeys, grew tomatoes and grapes for wine. Today, the island’s aging infrastructure is under great pressure, and the main port of Fira is operating at an incredible pace.
The boom in Greek tourism is felt not only in Santorini. In the first five months of this year, Greece’s income from national tourism increased by 16 percent, Reuters news agency reports. It is believed that in 2024 Greece will surpass last year’s record of 33 million. number of arrivals.
Currently, almost two-thirds of cruise tourism in Greece takes place in Piraeus, Santorini and Mykonos. It is about the fact that the country should diversify the routes for tourists and thus reduce the flow of tourists in the now extremely popular places.
Protests against tourists have been one of the most important political events in Europe this summer. Demonstrations took place in Spain, the Netherlands and elsewhere. Venice decided to limit the number of tourist groups to 25 people, banned the use of loudspeakers. In addition, it was estimated that the city received about 2.64 million from the temporary entry fee. dollars of income, he writes cnn.com.
2024-08-05 13:33:40