Hotel Prices Fall in Attica Region

Athens hotel occupancy rates last year remained at 2004 levels but the average price per room fell more than 15 percent, according to a recent report by the Attica Hoteliers’ Association. The average occupancy rate in the January-November period, said the association, was 64.1 percent, and occupancy rates were up in all the star categories except three-star hotels, where it fell 10.4 percent.

The association complained that Athenian hotels are facing a serious problem as regards the average room rate and average return to the hotelier per room. It also said that the significant improvements in infrastructure that the tourism industry envisioned after the Olympics have still not appeared.

These include a major stand-alone conference center, for which the Olympic tae kwon do venue had been designated but about which nothing has yet been done. Moreover, measures toward bolstering the number of visits to Greece’s main ports by cruise ships have been bogged down in bureaucratic red tape as well as the lack of any comprehensive policy.

“Attica’s refurbished and modernized hotels effectively end up subsidizing, with their low prices, the lack of self-evident and necessary infrastructure and activities that ought to be offered to visitors, in an extremely competitive international environment where all countries and cities are potential destinations,” said the association.