Investigation through questionnaires of the impact of tourist flows on environmental degradation: Case study in the municipality of Mykonos, Greece

This paper deals with the environmental impacts of tourism when tourism flows exceed the carrying capacity of a touristic destination by focusing on the island of Mykonos, which, in recent years, has become the most attractive and popular tourist destination in Greece. In order to achieve this, appropriate historical data on various environmental burden indices are collected such as energy consumption, water consumption, the production of sewage and solid waste and the percentage of construction services. Also, data relating to tourist flows are gathered. Moreover, a questionnaire survey is conducted targeting at the opinion of local residents about their valuation of tourism flows on local environmental pressure. A total of 403 valid questionnaires are collected. Results show that, during the summer period, there is a highly increased tourist flow in the island and various environmental burden indices grow substantially. Respondents indicate that tourism strengthens the economy of Mykonos, however, the island is facing a serious problem of environmental degradation by receiving an asymmetric volume of tourist flows in relation to the existing carrying capacity of the island. Regarding the efforts to address environmental degradation, respondents state that minimal efforts have been made to address it.