AXIA Hospitality Sees Encouraging Signs for Hotel Bookings in 2023

The year 2022 is shaping up to be a highly successful one for hotels in the portfolio of sales and reservations management company AXIA Hospitality.

The company recently released an analysis of the data for reservations made in 2022 for over 50 boutique and luxury 4- and 5-star accommodation units, which exceed 40 million euros in turnover.

“These figures are encouraging signs for an equally successful year (2023) that sets the bar even higher for Greek tourism,” AXIA Hospitality’s management said in an announcement.

According to the data, despite a slow start in booking demand during the first months of 2022, which was down 44.73 percent compared to 2019, hotel occupancy eventually surpassed pre-pandemic levels by 24.69 percent.

AXIA’s data also showed that the Average Daily Rate (ADR) of its partner hotels recorded an upward trend especially from June onwards with prices recording an increase up to 24.73 percent compared to 2019 figures.

A look into the ADR by nationality

With regards to this year’s average overnight rate (ADR) by nationality, American visitors are seen in the lead, reaching some 800 euros in July against the same month in 2019 (665 euros) and August 2019 (686 euros).

Greek travelers are listed as the second nationality in terms of high ADR with an average of 308.79 euros per night. They are followed by UK visitors with an average of 265 euros per night, the French with 236 euros per night and the Germans with 182 euros per night.

Overall, according to AXIA Hospitality, all nationalities have an increased ADR of over 29.38 percent compared to 2019.

ADR per region

Turning to ADR per region, the Cyclades islands, which have the most luxury units, showed the highest ADR this year with an increase of 28.76 percent compared to 2019. Next is Athens with a 25.27 percent rise. The ADR at hotels in the Ionian islands saw a mere 2.22 percent rise while units in the rest of Greece saw an increase of 29.07 percent.

Market share – Americans top the list

Breaking down its market share by nationality, AXIA sees that American visitors lead the way by far among the nationalities that booked a hotel belonging to its portfolio in 2022. American visitors have 33 percent of the total market share, surpassing 2019 (28 percent).

Moreover, AXIA observes that during the two previous years and due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the French were the first nationality in bookings with 29 percent (2020) and 27 percent (2021) of market share. Americans, who did not travel in 2020 due to Covid-19, covered only 5 percent of bookings. In 2021, when they began to travel again, bookings from US travelers shot up and recovered up to 25 percent of market share.

Bookings from Germany also showed an increase in 2020 (17 percent) and 2021 (12 percent), while in 2022 bookings by Germans dropped (9 percent) and returned to the level of 2019 (10 percent).

Travelers from Greece and the UK demonstrated a stable contribution to the total bookings that fluctuates around 20 percent.

Bookings for 2022 holiday season

For the upcoming holiday season, AXIA Hospitality observes a balanced distribution of the nationalities choosing Athens as a destination.

Studying bookings made for the period December 19, 2022- January 15, 2023, AXIA Hospitality sees Israeli visitors in the lead in terms of revenue (6.13 percent) and overnight stays (5.61 percent). Americans follow second in terms of revenue (5.20 percent) but come in sixth in overnight stays at only 2.68 percent. The remaining eight major nationalities (British, Romanians, Italians, Greeks Cypriots Arabs and Germans) range around +/- 3.00 percent of turnover each, while covering between 1.85 percent and 3.00 percent of total overnight stays.

Hotel bookings trend for 2023

Based on bookings figures for next year, AXIA Hospitality so far estimates a turnover increase of 193.07 percent for the hotels in its portfolio compared to 2022 and a 8.74 percent increase in ADR, with the total number of bookings and corresponding overnight stays showing signs of three-fold growth over 2022.

AXIA Hospitality in October presented a new corporate identity and announced that it was expanding its portfolio of services with its entrance in the field of management & leasing of hotel enterprises.