Greece is tightening its rules on short-term rental apartments in Athens to counter overtourism. This week, on Monday, September 16, 2024, the government banned the granting of new licenses for such rentals in three central districts of Athens, effective from January 1, 2025, for one year.
The country is in the middle of a housing crisis driven by low wages, high inflation, and property shortages. The situation has been made worse by property owners converting properties into vacation rentals, further reducing the availability of long-term housing for permanent residents.
Such is Airbnb’s influence that it has come under intense criticism and pushback for increasing housing costs across the board within popular tourist areas; in fact, locales such as Hawaii have already prohibited short-term rentals outside of their designated resort zones.
The Airbnb ban is being accompanied by an increase in the tourist tax, while there is also an incentive program in place to encourage property owners to shift from short-term to long-term rentals. Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni explained, “Many of such short-term rentals in existence today are nothing more than a form of hotel enterprises that burden further the already burdened Greek society.” Kefalogianni repeated that 2024 will be another extraordinary year for Greek tourism, placing the country among the top ten most popular tourist destinations worldwide. Tourism revenues may touch as high as 22 billion euros.
