Greek Hotel Performance In Fourth Quarter 2010

Greek hotels continued to lose ground last year while international competition showed clear signs of growth, but Greek tourism’s declining trend saw signs of resistance, recent figures released by GBR Consulting said.

According to GBR Consulting, international arrivals by air showed a 0.5 percent increase for Athens during the fourth quarter, for the first time in 2010, and was attributed to the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon last October.

However, developments in regards to revenue per available room continued to move on a negative scale with the fourth quarter showing the largest quarterly drop (-13.3 percent) of 2010, leading to an overall drop of 7.4 percent for the year.

As a result of this performance some hotels in downtown Athens seized operations.

As for Thessaloniki, the country’s second largest city showed a similar picture with a marginal increase (0.1 percent) in arrivals in the fourth quarter and a sharp drop in the revenue per available room of the quarter (-23.2 percent).

“That led to an annual revenue per available room drop of 20 percent,” GBR noted.