Greece is tightening planning rules for tourism development, with new restrictions proposed for hotel construction, islands suffering from overtourism and short-term rentals in destinations facing growing pressure.
The country’s draft Special Spatial Framework for Tourism divides Greece into five categories according to the intensity of tourism activity and sets different conditions for new investment in each of these areas.
The Greek government says the aim is to move away from fragmented development and introduce clearer rules that take environmental limits and the capacity of individual destinations into account.
Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou presented the plan recently as part of a longer-term approach to spatial planning, while Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni said the need for tourism growth in Greece should always be based on “measure and balance.”
The five categories range from areas where tourism development is already considered highly intensive to places where authorities want to encourage new tourism activity.
In Controlled Development Areas, which face the biggest numbers of tourists, the minimum plot required for a new hotel outside designated planning zones would rise to 16,000 square meters. New accommodation would generally be limited to three-, four- and five-star properties, in an attempt to raise the standards of the accommodations.
Developed Areas would require plots of at least 12,000 square meters. On islands falling within this category, new tourist accommodation would be limited to a maximum of 350 beds.
In Developing, Early Development and Special Development areas, the minimum plot size would generally be 8,000 square meters, while greater scope would be provided for new investment and specialized forms of tourism.
Greek islands face separate restrictions
The framework gives particular attention to Greece’s islands, where tourism growth is increasingly being linked to carrying capacity, landscape protection and available infrastructure.
Apart from Crete and Evia –Greece’s two largest islands–, islands are divided into groups according to their size. Local spatial plans could establish areas where tourism construction is restricted or prohibited in order to protect natural landscapes and cultural heritage.
The government is also bringing short-term rentals more directly into tourism planning.
Under the proposal, authorities could introduce different restrictions depending on the pressures facing each destination. These could include limits on how many months per year properties can operate as short-term rentals, geographical exclusion zones and restrictions on additional supply in areas considered saturated.
Greece wants to treat short-term rentals as part of the broader question of how many visitors and beds a destination can sustainably accommodate.
The same principle would apply to coastal development. The plan calls for unhindered public access to beaches, limits on continuous construction along coastlines and tighter consideration of the scale and character of individual coastal areas. The broader objective is to redirect investment away from destinations already under heavy pressure while encouraging tourism development in parts of Greece with greater capacity for growth in tourist arrivals.
Turkey issues statement reminding of its claims on the Aegean
The new regulations sparked geopolitical friction with neighboring Turkey. Reacting to the framework, the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated on Saturday that the plan carries no legal weight for Ankara, arguing it encompasses geographical features in the Aegean Sea whose sovereignty “was not ceded to Greece through international treaties”.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Öncü Keçeli accused Athens of using environmental protection as a “futile” political tool, warning against unilateral actions in what he calls “shared waters.”
Despite the sharp criticism, Keçeli reiterated Turkey’s readiness to cooperate on environmental issues and resolve disputes based on existing good-neighborly agreements.
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