Hotel Chamber: Tourist Arrivals Drop In Greece

Tourist arrivals have dropped 10 percent throughout Greece, President of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels Yiorgos Tsakiris said at a press conference in mid-May while presenting data gathered from the country’s hotelier associations.

However, Mr. Tsakiris noted that last-minute bookings could reverse the negative situation for the better.

According to the official data, tourist arrivals and average room occupancy rates for the island of Kos were down five percent and for Kerkyra and Thessaloniki down 10 percent. Tourist arrivals were also down for Zakynthos and Chalkidiki (-15 percent), Rodos (-18 percent) and Rethymno, Crete (-20 percent). Chania, Crete, and Kefallonia remained on last year’s levels while a slight increase was noticed for the Magnesia prefecture.

Mr. Tsakiris underlined that hotel prices were down by 10 percent compared with 2009 rates.

“This indicates that tourism enterprises not only absorbed the VAT increase, but also improved their pricing policy for the benefit of customers aiming to maintain a share in the market,” he said.

Although Mr. Tsakiris avoided making predictions he forecast that tourism revenue would be on low levels this year.