The beautiful but small islands of the South Aegean, namely Kos, Santorini and Rhodes, recorded the highest tourism saturation of any region in the European Union in 2024
Tourists hugely outnumber locals in islands including Rhodes (Image: peeterv via Getty Images)
A set of beautiful European islands face becoming ‘monsters’ as locals grapple with major overcrowding.
The charming but small islands of the South Aegean, namely Kos, Santorini and Rhodes, recorded the highest tourism saturation of any region in the European Union in 2024, with visitors spending more nights per resident there than anywhere else in the bloc, according to Eurostat.
Tourists logged 127.2 nights for every resident last year, the widest gap between visitors and residents found anywhere in the EU. The figures underline the challenge the islanders face in terms of managing their huge popularity, and not losing what makes them so desirable.
When I visited Rhodes in 2023 to see how the island was recovering from wildfires that had forced thousands of holidaymakers to evacuate, a number of independent hoteliers and restaurateurs told me how hard times had been in the past decade. While they cited numerous factors, the biggest one in their minds was the arrival of several large all-inclusive hotels.Do you have a travel story or opinion to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
TUI is a big force on the island, running two of its flagship TUI Blue hotels and offering package stays at dozens of others.
Both times I visited, I stayed at the Atlantica Imperial Resort and Spa, a palatial place that stretches its Greek-style whitewashed buildings and lake-sized pool across several acres of coastline in Kolymbia, over in the east of the island.
It was a difficult place to leave, such was the comfort of the beds, the extensive options at the all-you-can-drink bars and restaurant, and the fact it was separated from the nearest sizeable conurbation, Faliraki, by 5km of motorway, with another similarly lengthy stretch to get to the old town.
But when I did make the trip, I found a place that lived up to the Eurostat figures. Quaint alleyways were packed wall to wall with tourists; restaurants were choc-a-bloc full; knick-knack shops were difficult to squeeze into and hard to navigate without accidentally causing a stack of Colossus lighters to tumble to the floor.
At the other end of the island, I found the exact same scenes in Lindos, except the beautiful village and its cliffside acropolis had been swamped by an even denser pack of day-trippers.
The island is home to 115,000 permanent residents and welcomed 3.5 million tourists between January and September 2024, giving a local-to-tourist ratio of roughly 1:30.
Such demand has led to large-scale hotel construction projects, rapidly rising rents that are making it harder for locals to find a place to live, and damage to Rhodes’ natural assets, including by increasing the risk of wildfires.
Action is being taken. The national government has placed dozens of Rhodes beaches under protected status, while some areas are to become ‘red zones’ where new hotels can’t be built.
While Rhodes is struggling with high tourism numbers, Santorini’s problems are on a different scale altogether.
For many months of the year, the postcard-worthy town is taken over by battalions of tourists armed with selfie sticks and phones, jumping off massive cruise ships and making land via dinghies, riding up the steep hills on coaches and donkeys willing to haul them up cobbled streets.
They’re mostly there for the sunset. “This has been my dream since high school,” American tourist Maria Tavarez, 40, told NBC after watching the rays disappear beneath the horizon.
Residents are increasingly worried that the island of 20,000 is being overwhelmed by the nearly four million tourists who visit it each year.
“Our standards of living have gone down. It’s as simple as that,” said hotel owner Georgios Damigos, who warned the “wonder of nature” he lives on risks being turned into “a monster”.
As on Rhodes, work is being done, including a daily 8,000-cruise-passenger limit and a per-passenger €20 fee during the summer, with some parts of the coast now given “Untrodden Beaches” protection, meaning no sunbeds, no commercial activities and no structures.
Whether the South Aegean, along with the rest of Greece, successfully grapples with the challenges that come with its popularity remains to be seen.
If it doesn’t, it risks jeopardising a huge part of its economy. Between January and June, travel receipts across Greece increased by 14.8%, reaching €8.80 billion, while inbound travel traffic rose by 15.4% to 13.49 million travellers.