Release the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.Greece has mentioned it’s going to crack down on temporary vacation leases and cruise send visitors as a part of a collection of measures to curb over the top tourism within the Mediterranean nation. However trade leaders warned the constraints may hurt a a very powerful financial sector at a time when Greece is not off course to file a document selection of guests for the yr.“Tourism helps the economic system with sources and jobs, nevertheless it should additionally pay its particular percentage of social returns,” Top Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned in saying the measures past due on Saturday at a industry truthful in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-biggest town. Issues have grown in Mediterranean international locations equivalent to Spain, Italy and Greece concerning the injury to native communities and the surroundings led to by way of surging customer numbers and lightweight legislation.However tourism minister Olga Kefalogianni instructed the Monetary Occasions: “There is not any overtourism in Greece. What we’re seeing is overconcentration in explicit spaces all through top sessions.” 
PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Thessaloniki, Greece, on Sunday, mentioned: ‘Tourism helps the economic system with sources and jobs, nevertheless it should additionally pay its particular percentage of social returns’ © Giannis Papanikos/AP
Vacationers disembark from a ship on the port of the Santorini, in July © Aris Oikonomou/AFP/Getty ImagesKefalogianni mentioned the rustic should now glance to stability tourism-fuelled enlargement whilst protective its cultural and herbal heritage and making sure native wellbeing.Economists estimate that tourism contributes greater than 25 according to cent to Greek gross home product, and Mitsotakis insisted it will proceed to play a riding position within the nation’s economic system. “It is extremely bad to provide Greece as a spot that’s not welcoming to vacationers,” he mentioned on Sunday. Mitsotakis introduced the advent of a rate of as much as €20 for cruise send passengers to the most well liked islands equivalent to Santorini and Mykonos. Right through the summer season months more than one ships, some wearing hundreds of tourists, dock on a daily basis at the most well liked locations.George Koubenas, chair of Greece’s Union of Cruise Send Homeowners, mentioned the transfer unfairly focused cruise send passengers. “Cruise guests don’t use native infrastructure like water and electrical energy to the similar extent as different vacationers,” Koubenas mentioned, suggesting {that a} flat rate for all vacationers, like that levied in Italian towns equivalent to Venice, can be fairer.Koubenas instructed that native communities must set transparent limits on arrivals, with a well-defined allocation gadget for cruise ships to regulate flows at small island ports.Following equivalent limits imposed in Spain, Greece may be taking steps to keep watch over temporary leases by means of on-line platforms equivalent to Airbnb. Mitsotakis introduced a one-year ban on new temporary leases in 3 spaces of Athens. Vacationers incessantly get started or end their vacation within the historical Greek capital earlier than shifting directly to an island vacation spot. Andreas Chiou, president of the Greek Assets Managers Affiliation, mentioned the ban was once pushed by way of force from lodge house owners who considered temporary leases as a aggressive danger. “There is not any oversaturation of the marketplace because of temporary rentals,” he mentioned. He additionally criticised some other new measure incentivising belongings house owners to modify to long-term leases that features a three-year exemption. “How can belongings house owners, who renovated their houses for temporary leases, make a benefit on long-term rentals?” Chiou requested, caution that house owners may forestall the usage of legitimate platforms to advertise their homes, as has took place in towns equivalent to New York.A file by way of Grant Thornton for Greece’s Chamber of Inns confirmed vacation leases higher 28 according to cent between 2019 and 2023, with to be had homes doubling in that duration. Lodge mattress availability, against this, higher simply 3.5 according to cent. Chiou mentioned temporary leases accounted for best 2 according to cent of the entire condo marketplace in Athens, mentioning his personal affiliation’s information.Mitsotakis additionally introduced {that a} local weather disaster tax can be levied on lodge remains and temporary leases from April to October, with revenues directed in opposition to making improvements to infrastructure in vacationer spaces. “A good portion of the earnings will return to native communities, letting them higher get ready for the weight they face every summer season,” Mitsotakis mentioned.Italy lately proposed expanding vacationer taxes to advertise accountable go back and forth. Its new proposals may see vacationers pay a rate of as much as €25 an evening for luxurious lodging. Really helpful
Yiannis Paraschis, president of the Greek Tourism Confederation, mentioned enforcing charges may make Greece much less aggressive as its tourism trade continues to be recuperating from the commercial disaster a decade in the past and the coronavirus pandemic. “We should be extra wary than our Mediterranean competitors,” Paraschis warned. “In Greece, tourism is essential to our economic system in some way it isn’t for different international locations.”In 2023, the rustic welcomed a document 36.1mn guests, and within the first part of 2024, vacationer arrivals surged by way of 16 according to cent to 11.6mn, in step with the Financial institution of Greece, striking it heading in the right direction for a document selection of guests this yr.
