ATHENS – Only a couple of years after imploring tourists to come back after the COVID-19 pandemic, many Greeks are fed up with them and the government is struggling with how to control the numbers while simultaneously seeking more.

The Tourism Ministry’s campaign to get foreign visitors to come year round has largely succeeded – more than 31 million people, three times the country’s population, came in a record-breaking 2023 that also brought in more than 20 billion euros ($21.82 billion) in critical revenues.

But most still come during the peak spring and summer months, cramming themselves into the same usual popular places like Santorini, with parts resembling an ant hill, and Mykonos, not exploring lesser-known quieter islands.

In a review of the dilemma – wanting tourists and their money but trying to find the tipping point where too many destroy the character of the places they visit and the reasons for going there – Euronews said tourism is straining the infrastructure.

On some islands, such as Santorini, there’s not enough water, although luxury resorts and villas are filling swimming pools there, as well as around the country where they are also taking over public beaches.

It’s also affected Athens, once shunned by tourists who used it as a jumping off spot to reach islands and other areas but becoming a top European buzz city for its coffee shops and funky neighborhoods despite being essentially a concrete jungle.

Athens alone welcomed more than seven million tourists in 2023, and experts predict that it will jump by 20 percent this year, the news site said, adding that there’s anti-tourism graffiti popping up.

Katerina Kikilia, Professor of Tourism Management at the University of West Attica, told Euronews: “We need rules. Athenians face daily social and environmental impacts. The housing crisis is huge.”

Graffiti is growing in Athens too and resistance against the hordes of tourists, many using short-term rental platforms like Airbnb that have emptied neighborhoods of long-term residents, created a housing shortage and spiked rents out of reach.

WHERE’S THE BENEFIT?

In office just a little more than six months, Mayor Haris Doukas said the Greek capital’s buzz may be attracting a lot more tourists, but they aren’t bringing any real financial benefits.

Doukas – already seeking to become the leader of the fumbling PASOK-KINAL Socialists – told Fortune magazine ”we haven’t seen this money yet.”

“We need to find a way to make tourism viable,” without explaining what that means or how the figures he presented were arrived at, given the hordes visiting the Acropolis and other archeological sites and filling restaurants in areas like Plaza, Gazi, and Psirri.

While the New Democracy government has opened the floodgates for as many tourists as possible, while saying something has to be done about it, Doukas said so many arrivals is impacting neighborhoods.

That includes many of them, especially Koukaki, adjacent to the Acropolis, being turned into short-term rental havens for tourists, driving out long-time residents, spiking rents, and changing their characters.

So overrun was the Acropolis last year that a daily limit of 20,000 visitors was imposed during a record-breaking year that saw more than 31 million come to Greece, and another gangbuster year seen in 2024.

The number of tourists to Greece has grown 20 percent since 2019 – the previous record year until 2023 and before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020 bringing slowdowns, lockdowns and a near halt to international travel.

Greece as a whole and Athens are trying to deal with the dichotomy of needing tourists and their money but not so many that they overwhelm, put a strain on the infrastructure, and ruin the reasons they come.

Earlier this year, Greece introduced a “climate crisis resilience tax” that aims to raise funds that can help it address natural disasters by charging tourists through their hotel bills, the capital full of luxury accommodations.

Doukas didn’t say why the hotel tax wasn’t a benefit, nor why spending on restaurants, taverns, tourist shops and other businesses reaps only 40 euro cents per visitor or what kind of controls he wants.