Industry Reports & Trends

Crete-based Minoan Lines appears to be in the center of a shake up in Greece’s coastal shipping sector. Last month, the activity of the Minoan shares on the Athens Stock Exchange, and subsequent press stories, has led most to believe that Attica Enterprises (Superfast Ferries and Blue Star Ferries) is out to control Minoan.

Athens hotels had an increased occupancy rate for the month of October 2006, as well as for the first ten months of last year, while the prices remained about the same, according to the Attica Hoteliers’ Association (EXA).

A recent Alpha Bank study concluded that a new strategy is needed to facilitate development and construction of large tourism projects, such as resorts, marinas and organized beaches.

The number of foreign visitors arriving by air from January to August was up 8.4 percent, reported the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts (ITEP). This increase is more than double compared to Greece’s competitors in the Mediterranean. At the end of July, Croatia’s tourism was up 0.3 percent, Turkey’s was down -2.2 percent, Portugal’s up 5.5 percent and Spain’s was 3 percent.

Seventy percent of Greece’s tourism revenue, 11,037 million euro in 2005, comes from the 15 original EU countries found the Bank of Greece’s three-year travel survey (2003-2005).

According to data from the Ministry of Economy, 48 new tourism investments were approved in July under the development law. The total budget for all of these investments is 68.7 million euros, and the amount out of that total being subsidized is 28.7 million euros, or 41.9 percent for each approved investment project.

Package tours are growing increasingly popular reports the Hellenic Association of Travel & Tourist Agencies, with sales increasing during the popular travel season last month.

The Greek consumer group INKA announced last month that it received 7,100 complaints from tourists between the start of the year and the end of June. Most complained of excessive charges for poor-quality services.

It’s official. Greece, for the second year in a row, managed a substantial rise in its tourism arrivals. According to data from 12 Greek airports, which represent 90% of all air arrivals and 75% of all arrivals, the country welcomed 6.33% more visitors during the first half of this year when compared with the same period last year.

The year 2005 was characterized as the turning point and the beginning of an upward trend for Greek tourism with incoming tourism increasing by about eight percent was the conclusion of the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts’ (ITEP) recent study.