Athens has officially joined the group of countries pushing back on overtourism, though things have not yet gone as far as in Spain, where there are attacks from locals on tourists visiting places such as Barcelona, Canarias, or Mallorca.
However, there is a growing discontent among the locals (mostly in Athens) who are seeing their properties getting bought by overseas funds literally within the last 10 years, which has changed their city dramatically.
This is a phenomenon that mostly started when Airbnb came into our lives around 10-12 years ago, a time when the Greek economy was at its worst in modern history, and unemployment rates were the highest in Europe.
People saw Airbnb at the time as an opportunity to make a few extra dollars to put food on the table while the real estate prices around 2010-2015 were at their lowest prices.
You could buy an old flat in central Athens (literally meters away from the Acropolis) for 20-30K, which was unprecedented.
The thing is, though, that this was a massive opportunity for overseas investors who saw that as “too good to be true” and started buying whole buildings in Athens for peanuts, converted them to Airbnb studios, and started renting them out to tourists.
And that killed the local communities, the local shops, and the sense of neighborhood that Athens was known for centuries.
This phenomenon is even worse in some of the Greek islands, where there are no houses, flats, or even rooms to be rented per month, as every single property on these islands (mostly Mykonos and Santorini) is kept for tourists because the rates are higher.
This creates an enormous problem for people who work as teachers in schools or emergency services such as hospitals and the fire brigade, who are usually not locals but are doing their service on the islands for a few years or even months, and they have nowhere to stay on the island.
2023 and 2024 have been a year where the anger between Athenians has grown a lot, as the streets in central Athens are mostly occupied by tourists who are indeed benefiting the local economy, but on the other hand, have probably caused a lot of other issues in the local communities.
My view is that the Greek government has to protect the local neighborhoods and communities, especially in central Athens.
There have to be some measures and quotas in Airbnb and who can buy a property for short-term rentals in Athens, which is something that is already happening in many other cities in the world, such as London, Barcelona, Rome, etc
There are still discussions in the Greek government about whether to put a limit on the days that a property can be rented out as a short-term let; however, these have still not become a law, and there is no guarantee this will ever happen.
In my opinion, there must be a limit on the days for short rentals. In London for example it’s only 90 days!
Till that happens, Athens will continue to face a dramatic transformation and eventually become a real-life Disneyland, where the locals will be pushed away and only visit the ghost city to work for the tourism industry.
*all photos in this article belong to their respective photographers/agencies as shown.
