‘We must not become Barcelona’: Athens considers banning new hotels

The possibility of imposing restrictions on the issuance of new permits for hotels in Athens was raised by the mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, at the “This is Athens – Agora” event, according to Euronews.

In the Greek capital, there is already a ban on issuing new permits for short-term rentals in three neighborhoods of the city center.

“We really need to see if and how many more hotels we need and where,” Doukas said in response to a question from Euronews. “We need to see and think about how much extra tourist load we can lift and where.

“We must not become Barcelona. We have to understand that there are saturated areas that cannot afford new beds: whether short-term rentals or not.”

According to the latest available data from INSETE, there are 68,934 hotel beds in Attica. Of these, some 35 000 are located in the greater Athens city centre area.

Hotel industry players admit that the number of hotels in the Greek capital has increased dramatically in recent years, which raises sustainability issues for both the industry and the city’s tourism.