Over-tourism drives local and foreign tourists away from popular islands in summer months, while there is a significant increase in bookings… in September.
Hundreds of tourists flock during the summer months to the top destinations of Greece, such as Mykonos and Santorini, with the result that – apart from injecting liquidity into the local community – issues arise from overcrowding, mainly at tourist attractions, daily ethnos.gr reported on Monday.
As local government agents note, discomfort is registered even among Greek tourists who choose the specific destinations for their vacations.
Speaking to Open TV, the president of restaurant owners of Mykonos, Yiannis Theocharis, said that about 15,000 people found themselves on the island within a few hours.
The president of the Santorini Hotel Association, Antonis Iliopoulos, even refered to 25,000 tourists a day who disembark from a single cruise ship.
For this reason, many tourists now choose September to go to their favorite popular islands.
It is characteristic that, based on the data, bookings in Athens in September increase by 73%, while for Mykonos by 12% and for Santorini, the percentage is 13%.
According to daily kathimerini, European tourists are increasingly choosing to travel to destinations or periods of the year with less crowds, as they seek better services, new experiences and lower prices.
As a result, July and August are apparently showing fewer projected arrivals compared to last year in popular destinations in Greece, such as Mykonos and Santorini.
This trend is confirmed not only by hoteliers, but also by online short-term rental platforms. In these agencies, bookings for the months of July and August this year are reduced compared to last summer.