Overtourism anger is coming to a head in Greece, with staff within the Greek tourism sector making ready to protest, demanding pay rises and shorter working weeks.
Labor unions are organizing protests in ports, airports, and archaeological websites to lift consciousness concerning the poor wages paid to trade staff.
“We are asking for an increase of 12% for the next two years, that is 6% for each year. We are also asking – in 2024 – that the 5-day/40-hour working week also be applied to us,” Giorgos Hotzoglou, president of the Hellenic Federation of Tourism Staff, informed Euronews in a report printed Monday.
If the protests happen, they would be the first in Greece following a summer time of anti-tourism backlash throughout Europe. This summer time, Barcelona and Tenerife noticed a wave of anger erupt on metropolis streets after an inflow of vacationers pushed customer numbers to a file excessive.
Greece has most likely witnessed the worst aspect of tourism, an trade its economic system has come to depend on closely. Between 25% and 30% of the nation’s GDP now comes from tourism-linked actions; in some islands, that proportion spikes to 90%.
Nonetheless, it’s arduous to miss mass tourism’s influence on Greece in recent times. It has been blamed for exacerbating a housing and useful resource scarcity.
Final yr, the nation welcomed almost 33 million international guests—over thrice the scale of Greece’s inhabitants.
Regardless of that staggering determine, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insists the nation isn’t dealing with overtourism. As a substitute, it wants to enhance its administration of areas which have develop into vacationer clusters.
“It is very dangerous to present Greece as a place that is not welcoming to tourists,” Mitsotakis informed the Monetary Occasions final month.
Tourism clearly has proven no indicators of abating. Current authorities knowledge in Greece reveals that revenues from the trade have ticked down this yr regardless of a rise in arrivals.
If it had been as much as the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), it will flip the nation’s “sun-and-sea” attraction and focus as a substitute on providing experiences that really assist it enhance.
SETE didn’t instantly return Fortune’s request for remark.
Europe’s battle over tourism
Residents of the cities which were coping with a swell in vacationers have argued that the once-positive power is now hurting residents’ high quality of life by pushing housing prices up and turning native neighborhoods into vacationer sights.
Greece is way from alone within the disaster it faces, and plenty of nations have taken issues into their very own arms.
Hungary is contemplating measures to pause the issuance of short-term Airbnb licenses in its capital metropolis of Budapest.
In the meantime, Venice has launched a so-called vacationer tax, banned loudspeakers, and capped customer teams at 25 this yr within the hopes that it will preserve the influence of mass tourism underneath management. Not too far-off, Amsterdam plans to halve the quantity of cruises docking within the city to restrict vacationer nuisance.
