ATHENS – In office little more than six months, Mayor Haris Doukas said the Greek capital’s buzz may be attracting a lot more tourists – as many as seven million a year – 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. “Each visitor brings 40 (euro) cents to the city, and we haven’t seen this money yet,” Doukas said.

“We need to find a way to make tourism viable,” without explaining what that means or how the figure was arrived at giving the hordes visiting the Acropolis, 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 120 percent between 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 – 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 bring ruin to the reason 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 percent per visitor or what kind of controls he wants.