Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point

One of the most enduring images of Greece's summer travel brand is the world-famous sunset on Santorini Island, framed by sea-blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.
This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters, and souvenirs -- and now the queue to reach the viewing spot in the clifftop village of Oia can take more than 20 minutes, said AFP.
Santorini is a key stopover of the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.
Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 residents.
"We need to set limits if we don't want to sink under overtourism," Santorini mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.
"There must not be a single extra bed... whether in the large hotels or Airbnb rentals."
As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.
For canny entrepreneurs, the Cycladic island's famous sunset can be a cash cow.
One company advertised more than 50 "flying dresses", which have long flowing trains, for up to 370 euros ($401), on posters around Oia for anyone who wishes to "feel like a Greek goddess" or spruce up selfies.
'Respect Oia'
But elsewhere in Oia's narrow streets, residents have put up signs urging visitors to respect their home.
"RESPECT... It's your holiday... but it's our home," read a purple sign from the Save Oia group.
Shaped by a volcanic eruption 3,600 years ago, Santorini's landscape is "unique", the mayor said, and "should not be harmed by new infrastructure".
Around a fifth of the island is currently occupied by buildings.
At the edge of the cliff, a myriad of swimming pools and jacuzzis highlight Santorini is also a pricey destination.
In 2023, 800 cruise ships brought some 1.3 million passengers, according to the Hellenic Ports Association.
Cruise ships "do a lot of harm to the island", said Chantal Metakides, a Belgian resident of Santorini for 26 years.
"When there are eight or nine ships pumping out smoke, you can see the layer of pollution in the caldera," she said.
Cruise ship limits
In June, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis floated the possibility of capping cruise ship arrivals to Greece's most popular islands.
"I think we'll do it next year," he told Bloomberg, noting that Santorini and tourist magnet Mykonos "are clearly suffering".
"There are people spending a lot of money to be on Santorini and they don’t want the island to be swamped," said the pro-business conservative leader, who was re-elected to a second four-year term last year.
In an AFP interview, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni echoed this sentiment and said: "We must set quotas because it's impossible for an island such as Santorini... to have five cruise ships arriving at the same time."
Local officials have set a limit of 8,000 cruise boat passengers per day from next year.
But not all local operators agree.
Antonis Pagonis, head of Santorini's hoteliers association, believes better visitor flow management is part of the solution.
"It is not possible to have (on) a Monday, for example, 20 to 25,000 guests from the cruise ships, and the next day zero," he said.
Pagonis also argued that most of the congestion only affects parts of the island like the capital, Fira.
In the south of the island, the volcanic sand beaches are less crowded, even though it is high season in July.
'I'm in Türkiye
The modern tourism industry has also changed visitor behavior.
"I listened (to) people making a FaceTime call with the family, saying 'I'm in Türkiye," smiled tourist guide Kostas Sakavaras.
"They think that the church over there is a mosque because yesterday they were in Türkiye."
The veteran guide said the average tourist coming to the island has changed.
"Instagram has defined the way people choose the places to visit," he said, explaining everybody wants the perfect Instagram photo to confirm their expectations.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Thursday for countries to address the urgency of the extreme heat epidemic, fueled by climate change - days after the world registered its hottest day on record.

"Extreme heat is the new abnormal," Guterres said. "The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures," he said.

Climate change is making heatwaves more frequent, more intense and longer lasting across the world.

Already this year, scorching conditions have killed 1,300 hajj pilgrims, closed schools for some 80 million children in Africa and Asia, and led to a spike in hospitalizations and deaths in the Sahel.

Every month since June 2023 has now ranked as the planet's warmest since records began in 1940, compared with the corresponding month in previous years, according the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The UN called on governments to not only tamp down fossil fuel emissions - the driver of climate change - but to bolster protections for the most vulnerable, including the elderly, pregnant women and children, and step up safeguards for workers.

Over 70 percent of the global workforce - 2.4 billion people - are now at high risk of extreme heat, according to a report from the International Labour Organization (ILO) published Thursday.

In Africa, nearly 93 percent of the workforce is exposed to excessive heat, and 84 percent of the Arab States' workforce, the ILO report found.

Excessive heat has been blamed for causing almost 23 million workplace injuries worldwide, and some 19,000 deaths annually.

"We need measures to protect workers, grounded in human rights," Guterres said.

He also called for governments to "heatproof" their economies, critical sectors such as healthcare, and the built environment.

Cities are warming at twice the worldwide average rate due to rapid urbanization and the urban heat island effect.

By 2050, some researchers estimate a 700 percent global increase in the number of urban poor living in extreme heat conditions.

This is the first time the UN has put out a global call for action on extreme heat.

"We need a policy signal and this is it," said Kathy Baughman Mcleod, CEO of Climate Resilience for All, a nonprofit focused on extreme heat.

"It's recognition of how big it is and how urgent it is. It's also recognition that everybody doesn't feel in the same way and pay the same price for it."

Greece's 'Instagram Island' Santorini nears Saturation Point