People have been moving to cities for decades now. Many of humanities recent developments make much more sense at scale so people are going to places with that scale. Some prefer a quieter environment and don't move but most people rather have opportunities, jobs, services, etc and all that is made much easier when lots of people are concentrated in a smaller area.
Sure, bringing in tons of tourists where there were initially none is going to change a place. But isn't it a way to keep it alive, even if different?
I think the situation is different from places where people actually want to live but are pushed out "by the rich" (tourists or second-home owners).
- Before airbnb there was some balance in these places: people had regular professions (plumbers, builders, bakers, farmers, agriculture, fishing, hoteliers, etc)
- After airbnb: local people saw that opportunity for extra income on the side, also thriving side businesses around tourirm. There is also the existing generation of people still doing these regular professions
- Now: local people might have sold their properties to companies managing these airbnbs or foreigners visiting once per couple years. Local people have also enough money to live comfortably somewhere else, number of regular professions is declining or replaced by non-local people, e.g. from India or Pakistan (this is the case for all balkan countries). For reference, a couple years ago, this was done by people from Albania or Romania.
- In 20 years: these islands are not inhabited by greek people, only companies maintain these airbnbs or whole villages are left empty. No bakeries are left, no local markets, only large supermarket chains bringing non local food and groceries, noone likes to work as a plumber or baker since they can make money from other stuff.
This is how i see the future in these places. I am not talking about the popular ones like Mykonos or Santorini, these are high-income generators and won't have an issue finding "workers". However this is the current state in other non popular islands.
In France, many small villages are dying. They're not cute enough or whatever to attract tourists, so as people leave for the cities, local bakeries and other businesses close, lacking clients. They become almost ghost-towns with abandoned homes everywhere.
As a foreigner, I very much enjoy holidaying in your beautiful islands but do not wish to destroy their charm with my attendance. You have some beautiful waters.
The commoditisation, clustering and gentrification of landscape and living is world-wide phenomenon.
At Corsica FLNC fought with bombing against hijacking of landscape by vacationers. But xenophobia solves nothing.
Revolution? Slow collapse? Some way out of the cities and back to the countryside? Idk. Time will tell.