Greece’s Acropolis is one of the world’s most significant ancient sites and regularly attracts as many as 23,000 people per day.

However, Greece is set to introduce limits on the number of visitors from September in a bid to crackdown on overtourism.

From the autumn, the UNESCO World Heritage site will allow no more than 20,000 people per day to visit the Acropolis.

Greece’s culture minister, Lina Mendoni, told radio station Real FM: “Obviously tourism is desirable for the country, for all of us. But we have to find a way of preventing overtourism from harming the monument.”

The new visitor quota will have hourly entry limits based on the time of day. Currently around half of the visitors arrive before midday.

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Many of the tourists come from cruise ships and spend around 45 minutes at the site as part of a group tour.

Under the new rules, around 3,000 visitors will be allowed to visit the monument at 8am with another 2,000 slots introduced at 9am and at intervals throughout the day.

Mendoni said the current situation “creates unpleasant conditions for the site, the visitors and the staff who are trying to accommodate this high volume of people.”

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The new measures have been designed to protect the monument and improve the experience for visitors.

At the moment, tourists are often forced into a bottleneck as they try to enter the site among huge crowds.

Last month, the Acropolis was forced to close as soaring temperatures created unbearable conditions in Greece.

The Acropolis isn’t the only top attraction to be struggling to cope with high numbers of tourists.

Venice has been issued a warning about overtourism while even St Ives has considered introducing a tourist tax.

The world’s most overcrowded tourist city has more than 30 tourists for every local resident while the UK’s most crowded attraction is in Scotland.

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