Hotels & Accommodations

A trip into the downtown offices of the Greek Hotel Chamber does not leave one impressed with its civil-servant-type organization. The chamber’s newly elected president, Makis Fokas, however, says he intends to change this.

Georgos Kokotos, once a well-known hotelier with units on Rodos and Crete, is back in the business: This time with a new and unique product for Greece. He is creating a winery complex with accommodation facilities for visitors who wish to acquaint themselves with the entire process of winemaking.

On the first of next month, Athenians celebrate the rebirth of the capital’s most magnificent lodging unit: The Hotel Grande Bretagne. After spending some 70 million euros during the past year and one-half and literally gutting the old “palace,” owners rebuilt the GB, as it is affectionately known by Athenians, into a wonder that compares with its glorious past.

A convention and visitors bureau for Athens, that’s the top priority for the new board of directors of the Attica Hoteliers’ Association. Already, the board has the support of the Attica Regional Authority. The next step is to convince travel-related associations in the region to cooperate.

While luxury hotel units in the Athens area fight to keep their heads above water and keep above a 60% occupancy rate, the new kid on the block, The Athenian Callirhoe Exclusive Hotel, boasts rates above 75%.

Olympic Games organizer Athens 2004 last month approved two bank-led consortiums, Alpha Filoxenia 2004 and Elliniki Filoxenia, which includes a company of some 100 Greek travel agents, as the official managers of the accommodation program for the 2004 Games. The two consortiums, which submitted the required letters of guarantee for 4.5 million euros, will oversee the rentals of private apartments to visiting spectators.

Akis Tsohatzopoulos, Greece’s development minister, says requirements of the Olympic Hospitality program will be met. “There is absolutely no concern about securing the beds required for the ‘philoxenia’ program, since, out of the 23,000 rooms needed, 20,000-21,000 have already been secured,” he says. “We expect that the remaining 2,500 will be secured through the timely completion of 48 applications for the construction of new hotels in the Athens region.”

In his many travels, Vassilis Vellanis stayed at a plethora of hotels. But for the most part, each was totally impersonal. Some were even downright unacceptable. Friends and business acquaintances – for the past 50 years his family has run an Greek industrial group with plants and offices in western and eastern Europe – told him similar stories about Greek hotels. Each story added pieces to a dream for a perfect hotel.

From the outside, this does not appear to be a particularly distinctive premium hotel. Its classical style, however, designed to blend in with the intentional blandness of the new El.Venizelos airport at Spata, does grab your attention. Once inside, the change is mind boggling.

Although most of the major Athenian hotels that have closed for radical renovations had planned to do so long before the September 11 attack, the timing has turned into a godsend for the rest of the sector. And with bookings down to cover only about 35% available beds, hoteliers should be very pleased with the turn of events.