Hospitality News

Through share purchases on the Athens Stock Exchange, the Hyatt Regency of Thessaloniki purchased at least 17% of the Athens-central deluxe hotel Grand Bretagne. Hyatt said it would acquire additional shares if the open-market price is reasonable.

A partial deal between the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee and the capital’s hoteliers’ union on accommodation for Olympic Games’ visitors to Athens was reached last month with the assistance of Development Minister Nikos Christodoulakis.

Greece’s Hyatt Regency aims to expand its hotel-casino business in the immediate future to countries outside of Greece, says the company’s chairman, Georgos Galanakis. He did not, however, exclude expansion in Greece and said the company would utilize every business opportunity available. For 1999, the company posted net profit before taxes of 11.3 billion drachmas, which was 79.4% up over the year before. Revenue for the year for the hotel and casino reached 44.3 billion drachmas, or 22.3% more than the year before. For this year, the company expects revenue of 49.4 billion drachmas and a net profit before taxes of around 14 billion drachmas.

The Chandris hotel group recently completed a billion-drachma renovation of its unit on Chios island as part of efforts to meet the growing demands of the tourism market.

At least four tourism enterprises head for the Athens Stock Exchange this year in search for cash. The Astir Group wants 18 billion drachmas, the Divanis group 20 billion, the Club Hotel Loutraki 55 billion, and the Casino Xanthis two billion drachmas.

Stratos Vasilikos is one of the few in the Greek tourism industry who realized early that quality is the only way to compete and make money. In a step-by-step approach, he practiced what he preached.

The Mantonanakis Group recently signed an agreement for the long-term lease of the Xenia Akronafplias hotel group of Nafplio, which is owned by the Hellenic Tourism Organisation (EOT). The organization’s general secretary, Evgenios Yiannakopoulos, and Mantonanakis company’s representative, Anna Mantonanaki, signed the lease.

Utell, the worldwide hotel reservations and marketing service of REZsolutions, has launched ‘Discover Greece 2000’ program in conjunction with Astra Hotels. A dozen destinations within Greece are spotlighted within the program. The destinations spotlighted include Athens, Thessaloniki, Halkidiki, and the Pelopennese, and the islands of Mykonos, Tinos, Santorini, Corfu, Thassos, Spetses and the Saronic Gulf islands of Poros and Hydra. Prices start at 11,000 drachmas for a double room per night at the Porto Perissaon, Santorini. Utell operates in 180 countries and represents 7,700 properties worldwide. It maintains 50 offices in key locations.

Construction on a major league tourism and recreation park in the Athens area gets underway next month. The 18-billion-drachma “Star City” venture covers some 278,000 square meters of beachfront property in the Athens suburb of Glyfada.

Greece’s biggest hotel chain, Grecotel, last month officially opened its new city-center hotel, the Omonia Grand. This second city hotel of the group stands proudly in front of the capital’s second most popular square, Omonia. Its first city unit, the 5-star Athens Plaza, faces the capital’s main square, Syntagma.