Greece – The Unexplored Tourism Investment Paradise: Opinion

Photo source: The Greek Opportunity

By Kostantinos Xanthopoulos, Financial Specialist

More and more foreigners are targeting the Greek Real Estate Market for the purpose of tourism investment or even to secure their own vacation destination in Greece. The main reason is that the country is among the last “unexplored” European paradises for vacation home owners and hotel investors.

Traveling to Greece for the first time to search for a tourism property is a life-altering experience. The unique culture and the beauty of the spectacular landscapes, alone, are enough to amaze the visitor. Add on the rest that Greece has to offer and prepare yourself for a long-lasting experience that you will remember forever.

One of the reasons to make a vacation investment in Greece is accessibility.
The convenient and direct access by all means of transport — including airplanes, boats or cars — makes travelling to almost every tourism destination in Greece very easy. Considering the air transfer in particular, we should refer to the 21 international airports located across Greece’s mainland and islands, as well as the active interest shown by many large airlines such as British Airways, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air Berlin, Aegean Airlines, Norwegian, Ryanair, EasyJet, Brussels Airlines, Transavia and Ellin Air.

Other reasons relate to the very good climate Greece offers its visitors throughout the year. The average temperature is 18 degrees C, with more than 300 days of 8.5 hours sunshine daily.

We also must not forget Greece’s coastline, which is double the coastlines of Spain and Portugal, featuring almost 400 beaches awarded with blue flags. With 13,676km coastline, this is the lengthiest in the Mediterranean and thus provides ideal locations for vacation homes to be purchased and built.

Another very significant reason to pursue an investment in Greece, either as a tourist or as a tourism investor, is the Greek Residence Permit Program that allows non-EU citizens to invest in Greece and get a five years (renewable) Residence Permit. This way, an investor that buys a vacation house or makes a tourism investment in Greece can apply for a residence permit for him, his family or even his business partners. Currently, due to the crisis, there are thousands of vacations house for sale. Over €4 billion of new Hotel Investments are being planned, all of them in the four- and five-star categories, citing that more than two dozen hotel projects stretching from Corfu to Crete are on the drawing boards. About half of those projects are being financed by foreign private-equity companies.
Would you start searching for a vacation house or a tourism investment in Greece too?