Visits to the Acropolis in Athens will be regulated from September, including a cap on their number, to reduce massive queues and bottlenecks at peak times, the Greek Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday. Culture. A maximum of 20,000 people will be able to admire this emblematic monument, the most visited in Greece, daily, and they will be assigned time slots throughout the 12 hours the site will be accessible each day, the same source explained. .
The new slot system will be introduced “on a trial basis” on September 4, the ministry continued in its statement. The move is intended to protect the 2,500-year-old Acropolis and “enhance the visitor experience”, he added. A similar system will subsequently be introduced, from April 1, on other Greek archaeological sites, announced the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni on Real FM radio.
According to the Greek national statistics agency Elstat, more than three million people visited the Acropolis last year, compared to 1.2 million in 2021, during the pandemic caused by the coronavirus. Last July, during the two weeks that Greece was in the grip of a heat wave of exceptional magnitude, the hours of visit of this monument were limited on several occasions.
The country is counting on tourism to revive its economy after facing a debt crisis that lasted nearly a decade. The authorities hope to exceed the 31.3 million arrivals recorded in 2019, a record year. The number of tourists in Greece is now reaching levels close to those before the pandemic.
