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The Greek island was shaken by thousands of mostly smaller-scale temblors. Now, residents have returned, and they hope visitors will, too.
April 4, 2025Updated 6:08 a.m. ET
Weeks after being rattled by thousands of mostly small-scale earthquakes, the island of Santorini, the jewel in the crown of Greece’s tourism sector, is determined to return to business as usual — even as the quake phenomenon remains a mystery.
The tourism-dependent island, which had been enjoying a strong comeback after the coronavirus pandemic, is counting on it.
The first two cruise ships of the season arrived on the last two Sundays of March, and more than 40 are due this month, kicking off a year in which the union of cruise ship owners has predicted a 10 percent increase in cruise visitors over last year.
But hoteliers are still expecting a slower year, with bookings down about 30 percent compared with 2024.
“Things have woken up over the past couple of weeks,” said Alexis Yannoulatos, who runs the Blue Dolphins hotel and the Grand View on Santorini’s caldera, the rim of an ancient volcano that gave the island its unique shape, multicolored beaches and rock formations. But he said that April was likely to be a “miserable” month for tourism revenues.
Mr. Yannoulatos, who hosted visitors from South Korea at the height of the quake crisis in mid-February, said that occupancy at his hotels was 30 percent for April, with reservations for May and the summer months expected to rise to about 50 percent.
