Greece to Increase Port Fees and Limit Cruise Ships at Most Popular Islands

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis detailed a series of steps the country plans to roll out to better manage the influx of tourism Greece is experiencing. He introduced the concepts in a major policy speed on Saturday but during a press conference Sunday insisted Greece does not have an overtourism problem but a few specific locations the Prime Minister said are being inundated.

Announcing the government’s approach to tourism, the Prime Minister highlighted the country is going from one record year to the next record year now. “We had another extremely successful tourism year,” he said in his policy speech. “Tourism supports the economy with significant resources and jobs, but also has its own special share of social issues.”

Details of the approach called for imposing a €20 ($22) per person port tax during the peak summer months for passengers arriving both at Santorini and Mykonos. It will be lower at other ports and escalate based on the season.

“A significant part of this specific revenue will return to the local communities,” the Prime Minister promised. “It is important for them to be better organized, to support their infrastructure against the burden they receive every summer.”

The move to take steps to control tourism, and specifically cruise passengers, came as Greece is set to surpass seven million annual cruise passengers according to the local trade association. Overall, the Bank of Greece says tourism was up more than 15 percent in the first half of 2024 above the record 33 million visitors to Greece in 2023.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis told the audience they were becoming very concerned with the image of some islands overrun by tourists during the busy summer cruise season. He said in addition to the new port tax they were working with the individual destinations to establish limits to daily cruise ship arrivals.

Both Santorini and Mykonos were already moving to institute limits although local officials said the challenge is that cruise lines typically set itineraries two years or more in advance. Santorini in 2024 cut the number of peak days to 48 down from 63 in 2023. Despite that, the island with a population of under 16,000, had days with 11,000 cruise passengers and reported a peak of 16,000 to 17,000 in one day. Santorini said it wants to reimpose a cap of no more than 8,000 cruise passengers in a single day.

Mykonos was expecting approximately 1,000 cruise ship visits in 2024 with a total of 1.5 million visitors. The peak came on August 27 when a total of eight cruise ships were scheduled to make port calls in one day. Officials on the island warned that they could be receiving as many as 20,000 visitors that day. 

The Prime Minister tied the caps to the country’s efforts to also deal with climate change and its impact on the environment. The new cruise fees were part of a broader effort which he said would also include new fees on short-term rentals which he blamed for causing a shortage of housing and driving up costs.