Greece is being gripped by what has been described as a tourist crisis which could reportedly spread across the Mediterranean to Spain.

       The issues relates to the number of holiday homes exceeding hotel beds. This has sparked concern over local housing in terms of difficulties in accessing it and rising prices.

       This is partly as a result of an exponential increase in tourist-use homes and a general boom in mass tourism.

       elEconomista reports that, in 2023, Spain had an offering of just over 340,000 tourist-use homes compared to 1.7million hotel rooms.

       During the same year, hotels only increased their offering by 1.4%, but tourist-use homes (VUTs) grew by 10%.

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       In Greece, meanwhile, short-term rental options (1million) have far exceeded the nearly 890,000 hotel rooms on offer.

       Measures have been rolled out in Europe to curb the proliferation of tourist rental homes, including the elimination of the Golden Visa programme, through which foreign investors obtained residency; restricting licences for VUTs, or requiring short-term rentals to be registered.

       In line with this, Greece has banned registering new tourist rental homes during 2024.

       The measure currently applies only to certain neighbourhoods in Athens, the city that hosts most tourists out of the 32.7million annually (a record in 2023) and with the highest overcrowding.

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       Therefore, this year no more licences will be issued for flats located in areas such as Kolonaki, Koukaki, Pangrati, and Exarchia, among others.

       In addition, the new regulation requires all homes to be declared and threatens hefty fines for all illegal ones.

       It also offers the possibility of receiving tax benefits for all those owners who switch their short-term rentals to long-term and permanent ones.

       This measure begins to be applied in Greece with the intention of "relieving rental pressure and increasing housing availability," according to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which aims to address the housing crisis faced by Athens and other major Greek cities.