00:00Armed with selfie sticks and phones, tourists squeeze along a viewpoint to watch the Greek
00:05island of Santorini's famed sunset.
00:08I always wanted to come here. Actually, this has been my dream since high school.
00:14But for many of Santorini's 20,000 permanent residents, mass tourism is ruining the once
00:19idyllic island of quaint villages and pristine beaches. Some 3.4 million people visited the
00:24island last year, according to mayor Nikos Sourzos, putting pressure on its outdated
00:30infrastructure and pricing islanders out of the housing market.
00:34He wants authorities not to allow even one more bed on the island, and to cap cruise
00:39ship visitors at 8,000 a day, down from around 17,000 now.
00:45Giorgios Stamigos runs a hotel his parents opened in the 80s.
00:49I know for a fact that our standard of living has gone down. It's as simple as that. Because
00:57when we increase the number of visitors 20 times, we are on a small island. Santorini
01:08has a surface of 70 square kilometers. So what kind of infrastructure do you need to
01:16impose on this small island in order to cope with an increase of 30 times or under? I mean,
01:25without creating a monster.
01:28As protests against excessive tourism erupt in other top tourist destinations like Venice
01:33and Barcelona, Santorini is one of the starkest examples of how hordes of visitors can impact
01:38a place.
01:40But for others on Santorini, more visitors are good news. Vice President of Santorini's
01:44trade association, Alexandros Pelikanos, says with better infrastructure, the island
01:49could cope with an even bigger number.
01:54Do we want money or not, he says? You can't have your peace and quiet and make money.
02:04Santorini's tourism boom is echoed across Greece. National tourism revenues rose 16%
02:10in the first five months of this year, data shows. And 2024 is forecast to outstrip last
02:16year's record 33 million arrivals.
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