by Attracted by glorious beaches, excellent archaeological sites and comforting cuisine, around 33 million people visited Greece in 2023, around five million more than in 2022. According to the Greek National Tourism Organization (GNTO), it was a remarkable year 2023 is also for tourism. in Greece, and seven million passengers visited the country on board 5,230 cruise ships, compared to 4.38 million passengers and 4,614 cruise ships in 2022.
However, in an unprecedented step last month, Greece’s ombudsman, an independent organization created to fight maladministration and ensure the effective exercise of citizens’ rights, emphasized the need to regulate tourism in a sustainable way, saying that it is important for Greece to “exhaust its potential, without wasting it.” and make our tourist destinations unattractive over time”.
Responding to the statement last week, Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged to cap cruise tourism – an industry some say is being used as a scapegoat for wider over-tourism issues – by limiting the number of berths available for ships through a tender process. that vessels need to be used to secure the slots. Unlike Amsterdam, Venice and Barcelona, where restrictions are already in place, Greece is yet to introduce a daily limit on trips to the country’s most popular destinations, but there are fears that limiting the number of ships has a negative impact on the tourism industry. which represents a quarter of the Greek economy.
With around 1.5m passengers in 2023, Piraeus, the port for Athens, tops the list of popular cruise destinations in Greece, followed by Santorini with 1.3m and Mykonos with almost 1.2m.
In Santorini, where over-tourism has angered many locals, Kathrin of tour company Santorini Experts disagrees that cruises are to blame for the island’s chronic overcrowding. She says: “I don’t really like the term ‘overtourism’ – it feels like we’re only calling it that because of the chaos that ensues when there are so many cruise ships visiting at once. If we had another port where cruise ship passengers didn’t have to go through the whole tender and cable car process, I believe half of our problems would go away.”
However, Santorini-based hotelier Daniel Kerzner disagrees. “The influx of large cruise ships strains the infrastructure, strains and degrades the experience for all travelers and brings little value to the island… the current move to restrict cruises necessary to protect our island paradise,” says the owner of Santorini Sky, his luxury hotel in the mountain village of Pyrgos, far from the volcanic caldera where most of the hotels are located.
Business owners on the island are also angry about the lack of income brought by marine tourism. “They have everything on board – even souvenir shops – so they come here and walk around and then go back to their boat without buying anything,” says Maria Dimitirou, who owns a gift shop in Oia.
Dr Lauren Siegel, senior lecturer in tourism and event management at the University of Greenwich, agrees: “A cruise brings a large number of passengers to a port for a limited number of hours. It is often not long enough to have meaningful experience or contribute to economic impact in any given place. I understand the ease and convenience for those who want to take cruises, but this model only works if the host community also benefits from it. Unfortunately, many of the ports of call in Greece are tourist enclaves and the locals have nothing left.”
While Piraeus, Santorini, Mykonos and Rhodes are the main cruise destinations in Greece today, an increasing number of passengers are choosing to explore further afield.
The CEO of Greek company Variety Cruises, Filippos Venetopoulos says his company could be more versatile and offer a different – and much more authentic – experience by using smaller ships that carry fewer passengers. “Variety Cruises specializes in small boat tours that give our clients the opportunity to enjoy a range of different island stops in the Cyclades and the Ionian and Aegean Seas. We value the environment and strive to limit our impact while investing in projects that help reduce over-tourism,” he says.
However, hitherto little-visited islands, including Serifos and Lefkada, are complaining about the pressure on resource sustainability due to a sudden surge in visitors from the Covid pandemic.
Pollution is also a problem on islands visited by large numbers of cruise ships. Tests carried out by the Hellenic Ornithological Society (HOS) and air pollution experts from the German Nature and Biodiversity Union (NABU) have shown spikes in ultrafine particles, carcinogenic compounds and soot in the air near popular Greek islands as cruise destinations. “The real problem is not the total number of tourists. The problem is that most tourists are concentrated in the typical tourist areas we all know. There needs to be a plan to promote other areas in Greece,” says Mike Kapsilis who works for a tour company on Chios, an island in the northern Aegean rarely visited by the big cruise ships.
Dimitris Stavrakopoulos, director of Hermoupolis Heritage, a non-profit company based on the Cyclades island of Syros that aims to protect the island’s cultural heritage, believes the problem lies in the way maritime tourism is managed. “Marine tourism would have great potential here in Syros, while the visitor is encouraged to get a taste of the local culture. The ultimate goal of the island’s tourism development should be based on the philosophy of preserving the cultural heritage and thus turning it into a tourism product that will provide a livelihood for the local community,” he says.
In a recent report, the GNTO, which estimates that Greece will welcome more than 36 million passengers by 2026, says that “sustainability and social responsibility are vital for the global cruise industry”.
UK expert Dr Lauren Siegel agrees that there could be a positive future for marine tourism if it is properly regulated. “Although research has shown us that cruise passengers tend to be less motivated by cultural curiosity in favor of budget or convenience, I think cruise tourism can be more sustainable if there are limits to the size and scope of the ships,” a she says.
