Greece’s Lodging Professionals Not Satisfied with 2019 Results

The Hellenic Confederation of Tourist Accommodation Entrepreneurs (SETKE), representing small hospitality units, is calling on the government to ease taxation and regulate the short-term rentals market citing below par performance in 2019.

Contrary to Bank of Greece recent data for the past year which saw a 13.1 percent rise in revenues to 17.5 billion euros generated by some 31 million visitors, SETKE notes that its members saw occupancy levels, overnight stays and revenue drop.

“Unfortunately, this new data do not concern the whole hospitality economy given that the non-mainstream hotel sector recorded negative performance in both arrivals and revenues in 2019,” said SETKE in a statement, adding that small lodgings “do not appear to have benefited from the country’s tourism development, confirming members’ fears and estimates who, since the beginning of the previous tourist season, have been talking about reductions, even in the largest and most popular Greek tourist destinations such as Crete and Rhodes.”

SETKE attributes a large part of the decline to “unfair competition” created by the Airbnb phenomenon, claiming it has taken up a large part of the revenue pie which would otherwise have been picked up the country’s small hospitality facilities.

The body is also arguing that small tourist accommodation units are not entitled to tapping into investment programs to fund upgrades.