Greece's Santorini bursts with tourists as locals seek cap
Armed with selfie sticks and phones, tourists flood into Santorini from all over the world. But for many of the Greek island's 20,000 permanent residents, the once idyllic island of quaint villages and pristine beaches has been ruined by mass tourism. - REUTERS
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00:00Armed with selfie sticks and phones, tourists squeeze along a viewpoint to watch the Greek
00:05island of Santorini's famed sunset.
00:08I always wanted to come here. Actually, this has been my dream since high school.
00:14But for many of Santorini's 20,000 permanent residents, mass tourism is ruining the once
00:19idyllic island of quaint villages and pristine beaches. Some 3.4 million people visited the
00:24island last year, according to mayor Nikos Sourzos, putting pressure on its outdated
00:30infrastructure and pricing islanders out of the housing market.
00:34He wants authorities not to allow even one more bed on the island, and to cap cruise
00:39ship visitors at 8,000 a day, down from around 17,000 now.
00:45Giorgios Stamigos runs a hotel his parents opened in the 80s.
00:49I know for a fact that our standard of living has gone down. It's as simple as that. Because
00:57when we increase the number of visitors 20 times, we are on a small island. Santorini
01:08has a surface of 70 square kilometers. So what kind of infrastructure do you need to
01:16impose on this small island in order to cope with an increase of 30 times or under? I mean,
01:25without creating a monster.
01:28As protests against excessive tourism erupt in other top tourist destinations like Venice
01:33and Barcelona, Santorini is one of the starkest examples of how hordes of visitors can impact
01:38a place.
01:40But for others on Santorini, more visitors are good news. Vice President of Santorini's
01:44trade association, Alexandros Pelikanos, says with better infrastructure, the island
01:49could cope with an even bigger number.
01:54Do we want money or not, he says? You can't have your peace and quiet and make money.
02:04Santorini's tourism boom is echoed across Greece. National tourism revenues rose 16%
02:10in the first five months of this year, data shows. And 2024 is forecast to outstrip last
02:16year's record 33 million arrivals.