Santorini, with a population of around 15,500, received around 1.3 million cruise passengers out of 3.4 million total tourists in 2022.

Incidents of up to 11,000 cruise passengers arriving in a single day, with as many as seven cruise ships docking at once accommodating over 14,000 passengers, led to long waiting times at popular viewpoints.

Authorities in Santorini are considering restrictions to control large tourist flows, as the unique landscape should not be further developed, according to the mayor.

Some local entrepreneurs oppose the cruise passenger restriction, suggesting staggering ship arrivals instead.

Similar restrictions on mass tourism are being considered in other parts of Europe, with measures like limiting tour groups in Venice and potentially banning Airbnb rentals in Barcelona being discussed.

The Greek Prime Minister has mentioned the possibility of setting restrictions on cruise ship arrivals in Greece next year.

High-ranking Greek officials discussed limiting cruises to the island, as imposing limits on cruise arrivals is challenging this year, but efforts are being made to reduce peak days and regulate cruise tourism through measures like new port construction and better regulations.

Sources: NBC News, Dagbladet, DW, Hürriyet Daily News, Times of India, O Antagonista, Helsingin Sanomat, Daily Express, Ekathimerini.

This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.

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Japan is experiencing a severe population decline, with a record low of 730,000 births and a record high of 1.58 million deaths in 2023, leading to a population drop of 861,237, the largest ever recorded. The country has the world's second-oldest population after Monaco, with a record-low fertility rate of 1.2 children per woman.

The number of foreign nationals living in Japan has reached a record high of 3.32 million as of January 1, marking an 11% increase from the previous year and the highest since 2013. This is attributed to the end of pandemic-era border controls and the need for foreign workers due to population decline.

Younger Japanese are less likely to get married or have children due to high cost of living, dimming job prospects, and a gender-biased corporate culture, discouraging them from starting families.

The Japanese government has allocated 5.3 trillion yen ($34 billion) in the 2024 budget to fund incentives for young couples to have more children, including increasing subsidies for childcare and education, with an expected annual expenditure of 3.6 trillion yen ($23 billion) over the next three years.

Japan's diminishing population presents challenges such as labor shortages, with the service sector having almost three job openings for each worker seeking employment, and construction firms facing even tighter labor markets, leading to a record 260 companies going bankrupt in 2023 due to insufficient workforce availability.

Japan's declining population and a growing elderly population put pressure on the social security system, with a projected 10% decrease in tax and insurance revenues by 2040, making it challenging to finance increasing social security costs. Experts predict Japan's population will decrease by 30% to 87 million by 2070, with 4 out of 10 people being 65 years or older.

Sources: Newsweek, AP News, Time, Yahoo News, Japan News Yomiuri, Arab News, The Guardian, France24, Nikkei Asia, Al Bawaba, India TV News, The Japan Times, Benzinga, Asahi, AnyTV News, Ahram Online, The Straits Times

This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.

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The CBS reported that in 2018, 1,289 Israeli baby girls were given the first name Tamar, while 1,447 baby boys were named David.

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After David, the most popular names for Jewish boys in Israel in 2018 were Ariel, Noam, Lavie, Yosef, Uri, Eitan, Daniel, Yehuda, and Moshe. The most popular names for girls, after Tamar, were Maya, Avigayil (Abigail), Noa, Ayala, Yael, Sarah, Adelle, Shira, and Romi.

For years, Noa was the most popular name for Jewish girls. In 2008-9, 3.5% of Jewish girls were given the first name Noa, compared to the 1.9% of baby girls in 2018 who were named Noa.

The first name Maya was especially popular in the cities Kiryat Ono, east of Tel Aviv, and Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa, where 6% of baby girls born in 2018 were named Maya.

The Jewish boy's name Aharon, while not among the 10 most popular nationwide, was highly popular in the haredi communities of Bnei Brak and Modi'in Illit, as well as in Givat Zeev.

The single most popular boy's name for the entire population of Israel was Mohammed, although the name has been declining in popularity, and each year fewer Muslim families name newborn baby boys Mohammed.

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On Wednesday, JIPR researchers presented Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion with a statistical review of the city for 2019, which showed that for the first time in a decade, the city's population loss has been checked. One out of every two haredi men in the city works for a living, and the number of secular residents is the highest it has ever been.

"The numbers we presented are very impressive, by any parameter … the city is seeing some of the fastest growth in the country," Lion said.

"The statistic showing that every second haredi man works reflects reality and contradicts the stigma that exists in Israeli society. Jerusalem is the leading, the most special, city in Israel. Nothing compares, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. I'll lead Jerusalem forward to the heights it deserves to reach in the years to come," Leon said.

The numbers concerning migration out of the city are particularly interesting. For a period of some 10 years, an average 8,000 residents left the city each year. In 2018, only 6,000 residents left. Secular residents comprise 22% of Jerusalem's population. The number of pupils in public schools stands at 282,000.

Nearly half (49%) of ultra-Orthodox men of working age are participating in the workforce, the highest percentage since records have been kept.

Not only has the number of high-tech businesses in the city grown by 33.8%, but the Jerusalem Municipality also reports that the city has seen one of the highest survival rates for high-tech businesses – 62% compared to 50% nationwide.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, some 927,000 people currently live in Jerusalem, compared to 200,000 prior to the 1967 Six-Day War and 83,000 at the end of the 1948 War of Independence.

Living in Jerusalem is costly, with the average cost of an apartment standing at 2.018 million shekels, compared to the national average of 1.801 million shekels. The average rent in Jerusalem is currently 3,308 shekels, also higher than the national average, which stands at 3,183 million shekels.

The population of Jerusalem is 62.1% Jewish and 37.9% Arab. The city's Jewish population has one of the highest average birth rates in the country, 4.27, compared to the average of 3.05 elsewhere in Israel. In 2017, 24,704 babies were born in Jerusalem, 15,790 Jews and 8,914 Arabs. Big families are common, with 15% of families numbering seven people or more, compared to the rest of Israel, where only 6.1% of families include seven people or more.

During the last school year, there were 78,600 elementary school children in Jerusalem, 51,800 of whom were studying in haredi educational institutions.

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Srugo told the conference that the government must "stop pulling the wool over the public's eyes."

"There is a shortage of apartments here, much greater than the 146,000 households that have registered for the Mehir Lemishtaken ["Move-in Price" subsidized housing program for first-time buyers] lotteries. For years, we have been building fewer than 50,000 new housing units per year. To solve the crisis in the short term, we need to add another 20,000 housing starts a year in sought-after areas and get to 70,000 housing unit starts per year," Srugo said.

Professor David Passig, a future studies researcher, also addressed the conference. Passig discussed global trends in housing and explained that the housing market in Israel was going in the opposite direction from the rest of the world: while global population growth has been checked, Israel is seeing impressive population growth. Pasig presented a model showing that by 2050, Israel's population would number at least 16 million.

"Not preparing for that scenario is a crime. Our children will blame us if we aren't ready for the future because we know that this is what is going to happen. It's not something we can say we didn't know about," Passig said.

Srugo called on the government to establish a strategic planning authority while keeping its housing task force active.

"We are on the brink of a socio-economic abyss. As long as the government doesn't begin strategic planning for the next generation in Israel, we'll find ourselves in the biggest crisis since the state was founded. In 2030, there will be 12 million residents in Israel, and in 2050 there will be 17 million people here. Remember, this is a country where it takes 15 years to approve construction of a single [new] neighborhood, so 2030 is tomorrow and 2050 is the day after tomorrow. By then, Israel will need two more major metropolitan areas. Not two cities; two new major built-up zones."

Srugo warned that residential construction could not grow at the rate of demand without a dramatic increase in investment in infrastructure. He demanded that to allow infrastructure work to take a leap forward, the government address immediately the growing shortage of stone and other construction aggregate, thereby lowering the cost of raw materials for construction. He also demanded that the government keep Chinese construction companies out of Israel, as most western nations have.

"We don't need to bring in the Chinese and if we continue to do so, it will have serious ramifications for the [construction] sector, as well as our economy and security. Israel needs laborers, not foreign companies," he warned.

"The government must encourage the population to move to the periphery by investing in education, culture, and jobs, as well as building the necessary infrastructure," he said.

"Immediately expanding construction activity, which we need to do now, is the right thing for society and, no less important, for the economy. In the next few years, Israel will need to handle a deficit. Expanding construction and infrastructure as needed will contribute to economic growth, adding 4.1% per year to the gross domestic product, an additional 18 million shekels [$5 million] per year to the state coffers from the sale of land and taxes, and 70,000 jobs for Israelis," he said.

According to Israel Builders Association CEO Amnon Merhav, all the data presented at the Eilat conference "points to the need for a major change in how the government is handling the housing crisis."

"Only 18,000 apartments have been sold through the Mehir Lemishtaken program thus far, and even though the government hasn't made that public, we can assess that the number of apartments that have actually been handed over to the buyers is even smaller, a few thousand. So government intervention has resulted in an increase in the gap between supply and demand for apartments. At the same time, construction inputs, which jumped by 3% in 2018, and the shortage of raw materials, have become a major threat to our ability to address housing prices," Merhav told the conference.

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