Some tourists appear to have fallen out of love with two Greek islands that have historically been considered holiday hotspots.
International air traffic to Mykonos fell in 2023 by 5.9 percent, from 1.19 million tourists to 1.12 million.
In Santorini, it plunged by 9.9 percent, going from 1.7 million travellers in 2022 to 1.5 million last year.
Partial data from this year suggest Mykonos remains on the downward trajectory it has been experiencing for years, while the influx of international fliers appears to have stabilised for Santorini.
Airlines have scheduled 5.8 percent fewer seats on their flights to Mykonos for this year, according to the Airdata tracker data of the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE).
This decline is in stark contrast with the tourism trend experienced in the rest of Greece, which has seen an increase in scheduled air seats from abroad by 8.1 percent.
The slump in visitors to Mykonos over the past three years may be due to a lack of infrastructure able to sustain the large number of visitors it received and to high prices, according to sources in the tourism industry who spoke to Greek news outlet Ekathimerini.
Santorini and Mykonos are two of the holiday hotspots in Greece believed to be most affected by overtourism.Â
In a bid to tackle overcrowding and regulate the footfall in these beautiful islands, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged last month to create a plan set to reduce the number of cruise ships permitted to call at these popular destinations.
Stating the Cycladic Islands were “clearly suffering”, Mr Mitsotakis said the measures would put a cap on cruise liners.
Announcing the move to Bloomberg, Mitsotakis said Santorini, which last year saw some 800 cruise ships approaching its shores, is the “most sensitive” to overcrowding, followed by Mykonos, which in 2023 saw 750 cruise ships docking.