Study: Greek Hoteliers See Positive Outlook in Next Six Months

Photo source: Pexels.

More than half (59 percent) of Greece’s hoteliers are expecting “positive” or “very positive” performance in the upcoming six months as more travelers seek to visit the country, according to the European Accommodation Barometer carried out by Booking.com and Statista.

The study, based on surveys of 940 hotel executives across Europe, found that average room rates and occupancy levels at Greek hotels were on the rise, with three quarters of respondents saying that rates had either increased or strongly increased over the past half year exceeding the EU average.

According to the study analysts, after a difficult few years, Greece’s accommodation sector “is now in line with the rest of Europe”.

Source: Booking.com/Statista.

Key challenges to growth cited by Greek hotel executives include increasing energy costs and limited access to capital. More specifically 76 percent said they are worried about energy costs (EU average 78 percent); 65 percent, up from 33 percent in 2022, said the cost of staff was a major concern (EU average 62 percent); 45 percent cited investments (EU average 42 percent), while acquiring or retaining staff dropped to around 41 percent from around 48 percent in the summer. At the same time, respondents said government policies were expected to be beneficial.

Looking ahead, Greek hoteliers said that a major opportunity to drive growth in the coming six months would be to attract Generation Z travelers.

Other key findings for Greece include:

Photo source: Flickr.

– just 6 percent of Greek hoteliers intend to invest in digitalization, lower than the EU average of 12 percent

– 8 percent said they intend to invest in sustainability and decarbonization, which is lower than the EU average

– Greece together with other Southern European countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, reported the strongest growth in ADR and occupancy levels

Source: Booking.com/Statista.

– Greece (86 percent) and Spain (84 percent) are the top two countries in Europe planning to continue their current investment activity.

According to Eurostat, the number of overnight stays at tourist accommodation facilities in Europe in the first half of 2023, reached 1.19 billion compared to 1.18 billion in the same period in pre-Covid 2019.