The problems British tourists visiting Greece should expect this summer (and how to avoid them)

Tourism contributes €40 billion to the country’s GDP each year, but frustration is boiling over in Athens, Santorini and Mykonos

Greeks are renowned for their filoxenia – love of strangers. Last month, however, when Santorini politician Panos Kavalaris called on residents to limit their movements in order to make space for cruise ship tourists, patience began to wear thin.
Greece is already dealing with a slew of other issues, ranging from water shortages and wildfires to record-breaking temperatures. There’s also a housing crisis – with teachers and healthcare professionals unable to find lodging on the most popular islands. This is mainly blamed on short-term lettings sites such as Airbnb. 
Tourism, which contributed €42.7 billion (£36.6 billion) to the country’s GDP in 2023, is vital for Greece’s economy, however. Apart from Athens, where “tourist go home” graffiti has appeared in some neighbourhoods, there’s been none of the hostility towards tourists evident in numerous parts of Spain. In fact, unless you enter a church in a skimpy bikini, you can generally be sure of a warm welcome. That said, here are the big problems facing the country this summer, plus tips on how to avoid them.
Last year around 3.4 million people visited the 29 sq mile island of Santorini. Most of them made a beeline for main town Fira or the island’s unofficial sunset capital, Oia. Created to tackle the problems brought on by the summer crowds, members of local organisation Visit Oia have put up big blue signs asking for respect, reminding visitors: “It’s your holiday, but it’s our home.” 
According to the island’s mayor, Nikolaos Zorzos, if something is not done soon about the big issues of water, waste management, congestion and overdevelopment on Santorini, it will soon be too late. “We face all the problems of a big city, even though we are not designed to be a big city, but Greece’s highly centralised government takes away most of the power from local authorities to do something,” he says.
Don’t want to add to the problem? Stay in hotels such as Santorini Sky or Voreina Suites that are away from the caldera, seek out alternative sunset spots such as Imerovigli or Skaros Rock and avoid the summer months; Greece’s new climate tax will be higher between Easter and October, so travelling out of season makes even more sense.
Born out of frustration with the illegal privatisation of beaches, along with exorbitant fees of up to €100 (£86) charged for sunbeds, the beach towel movement – more formally known as the citizens movement by Greeks – was launched last year. “Locals felt like outsiders in their own community due to increasing frustration from invasive investors and a decline in their quality of life due to overtourism,” said Nicolas Stephanou, who helps co-ordinate the movement.
This year, the government has vowed to get tough on offenders by using drones to monitor beaches. They’ve also called on citizens and tourists to lodge complaints about zoning violations via the new MyCoast app. Some €350,000 in fines has been incurred so far and the situation has improved considerably, although locals on the most popular islands, including Mykonos, say that certain businesses merely remove the sunbeds during the inspection only to replace them as soon as the inspector has left. 
Want to help? Avoid beaches that are renowned for violating the laws which stipulate that no more than 50 per cent of the shore can be occupied by sunbeds.
Greece’s waste management policy was slated in a recent report from the Greek chapter of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which came as no surprise to anyone who has seen (and smelt) the country’s open landfill sites (according to the report, 80 per cent of refuse ends up in open-air pits) or who has struggled to find recycling bins outside of Greece’s larger towns. 
“The island’s infrastructure is coming under immense pressure because of the uncontrolled development of tourism, and the authorities are turning a blind eye to the tsunami of issues that are rapidly approaching,” says Nikos Boutsinis of Santorini Walking Tours, a company that takes visitors off the beaten track to discover another side of the island.  
How to help? Pressure hotels to create recycling areas and add the hashtag #mitsotakis to your photos of overflowing bins.
Around 33 million people visited Greece in 2023 – around five million more than in 2022, according to the Greek National Tourist Office – and a quarter of them arrived in cruise ships. 
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the country’s prime minister, recently promised to put a cap on cruise arrivals in the most crowded locations, but – unlike Amsterdam, Venice and Barcelona, where restrictions have already been implemented – daily limits have still not been established.  
“Unfortunately, many of the ports of call in Greece have become tourist enclaves with nothing left for the locals,” says Dr Lauren Siegel, a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Greenwich. 
Filippos Venetopoulos, the chief executive of Greek company Variety Cruises, says his company hopes to make a difference by using smaller ships that carry fewer passengers. “We have a range of different island stopovers in the Cyclades and in the Ionian and Aegean Seas, many are not on the main tourist track,” he says.
“Tourists – enjoy your stay in the cemetery of Europe,” reads angry graffiti scrawled over walls in the central Exarcheia district of Athens. Although protests against the likes of Airbnb have not gained the traction of those in Barcelona or Venice, anger against short-term lets, blamed for rising property prices, is growing; rents have increased by as much as 30 per cent in the past few years.
Prompted by recent protests, prime minister Mitsotakis has promised a crackdown that will include limiting the number of rental days or banning short-term lets altogether in certain parts of Greece and its capital city. “Stay in hotels and leave our houses and our neighbourhoods for locals if you want our city to remain authentic,” says Giannis Papadopoulos, who lives in central Athens.
“I just want to spend summer in Sweden,” a Greek friend sighed as we battled temperatures topping 40C in early July. Lasting for 16 days, Greece’s July heatwave was the longest the country has seen since 1980. It was lethal, causing the deaths of at least five hikers, including British television personality Michael Mosley. The extreme heat combined with the lack of rain this winter has also caused an unprecedented water crisis, with some islands, including  Leros, Crete and Sifnos, declaring a state of emergency, while the seaside resort of Halkidiki, near Thessaloniki, briefly introduced water rationing. 
Unusually high winds also made it extremely difficult for Greece’s (already overstretched) team of firefighters to tackle blazes that destroyed forests, fields – and occasionally villages – in more than a dozen locations, including Evia and the Peloponnese. How can tourists avoid these problems? Again, travelling out of season is a fine idea. Following local advice and wildfire warnings is vital, and, although still in its early stages, Google’s new AI tool, rolled out earlier this year, now maps wildfires in Greece – making it easier to avoid affected areas.

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