ATHENS – Instead of limiting the number of passengers who can disembark from cruise ships on Santorini – and looking at Mykonos and other islands – Greece is planning to increase a fee on them.

After growing reports that Santorini especially is being overwhelmed and its infrastructure strained – some 17,000 cruise ship passengers got off on one day recently – the government is trying to balance limits without lessening revenues.

New legislation in the works would reportedly require a minimum of 10 euros ($10.91) for passengers leaving the ship to visit islands but it wasn’t said if the money would go to local municipalities to help them deal with the crush.

Mayor Nikos Zorzos said ceilings on how many vessels could dock there would be reinstated in 2025, too late for this summer after there had been ceilings on how many ships could land there.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also earlier told the Bloomberg financial news agency overtourism on the island, as well as other popular areas of Greece, has to be dealt with as officials are trying to persuade people to visit lesser-seen spots.

The hordes on the island during the summer – the year round population is just less than 16,000 – has seen more than 2 million a year coming and climbing, stressing water supplies and pricing locals and tourism workers out of the housing market.

Zorzos told Reuters that he has been pushing authorities for years not to allow a single extra bed on the island and has proposed a cap on the number of cruise ship visitors to 8,000 a day, down from around 17,000.

The higher fees were proposed after a meeting that included Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogiannia, Shipping Minister Christos Stylianides, State Minister Akis Skertzos and Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund CEO Dimitris Politis.

There was even discussion, said Kathimerini, about a total ban on cruise ships on islands but that was said to have been quickly dismissed because of how much money would be lost, tourism being the country’s biggest revenue source.

A new port is being built at Santorini to deal with the massive cruise ships and the numbers that come off the boats although the mayor wants them curbed, as the daily numbers grow with those from ferries arriving there.