Thessaloniki Hotel Stays Pick Up at End of 2021

The White Tower in Thessaloniki. Photo source: @Thessaloniki Hotels Association

Tourism flows to Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, picked up in 2021 with the number of overnight stays increasing by 50.63 percent over 2020 but still down by 55.02 percent against pre-pandemic 2019 levels, the Thessaloniki Hotels Association (THA) said on Wednesday.

A total of 1,098,455 overnight stays were recorded in the city compared to 729,246 in 2020 and 2,442,020 in 2019.

According to the THA, the city started seeing some signs of recovery in the last few months of the year and mainly in September, October and November.

Greeks were the main visitors to the city in 2021, accounting for 53.12 percent of total overnight stays. Greeks made 583,471 stays in 2021 up by 26.96 percent over 2020 and 459,585 stays. However, the figure was down by 47.88 percent compared to 2019 and 1,119,582 overnights.

In the meantime, a total of 514,984 overnight stays were made by foreign visitors to the city in 2021, almost double that of 2020 (269,661) and down by 61.06 percent over the 1.3 million in 2019.

Leading source markets for Thessaloniki in 2021 were the US, with 56,734 overnight stays over 8,955 in 2020 (up by 533.55 percent), Germany, marking a 73.39 percent increase compared to 2020 to 44,681 overnights, and Romania up by 116.3 percent with 42,442 nights from 19,622 nights in 2020.

According to monthly data  released by research company GBR Consulting on behalf of the THA, revenue per available room (RevPAR) in Thessaloniki came to 34.36 euros in 2021.

At the same time, despite a 12.2 percent increase in average room rate (ARR) over 2020, Thessaloniki is still last compared to 10 other European cities of similar size (Antwerp, Birmingham, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Budapest, Hamburg, Manchester, Salzburg), GBR Consulting said