Industry Reports & Trends

If the right policies are followed, Greece can expect a large number of tourists from China in the coming years, when that country is projected to become the world’s biggest tourism market, according to a study by the Institute of Tourism Research and Forecasts.

The World Travel & Tourism Council released its 2005 travel and tourism forecasts for 174 countries and the world and an assessment of the impact of the Indian Ocean Tsunami on the industry at the recent 5th Global Travel & Tourism Summit in New Delhi, India. It also accepted Greece’s bid to hold the council’s next summit.

Again this year, IPK International released its Global Travel Trends study during Berlin’s tourism fair International Travel Bourse. The study found that Europeans continue their strong preference for sun and sea holidays.

Hoteliers in the Athens area continue to face painful economic problems and some even face extreme difficulty when it comes to paying running monthly expenses. They say the strong investment in modernization carried out prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics, in conjunction with post-Olympic drop in arrivals, places them in an almost dead-end situation.

Business travel is on the rise, according to recent research analyses. American Express, for example, predicts that overall travel costs for corporations will increase by around 3% this year, as business travel continues to recover and travel demand increases. It says that growing business travel demand is outpacing the levels of supply, but at the same time competition – particularly in the airline sector – is holding pricing down.

It appears that Germans have turned away from Greece as a holiday destination and have headed to cheaper destinations outside the euro zone. Greek tourism professionals say the move has been going on since 2002 and to a great extent is due to the condition of the German economy and that country’s increased unemployment rate; All of which tends to reduce the available income for holiday travel.

Vassilis Minaidis, president of the Panhellenic Hoteliers Federation, is not overly optimistic for tourism to Greece this year. “At the very best, foreign arrivals to our country this year should increase by some 3-5%,” he says. This increase, however, is hardly enough to cover the losses compiled over the past four-year period.”

The reduction of the current account deficit by nearly 2 billion euros during the first 11 months of 2004 underscores the leading role the service sector, or at least part of it, can play toward balancing Greece’s international transactions, according to the latest report of the Institute of Tourism Research and Forecasts (ITEP).

A business travel survey has revealed a magic formula for the perfect business trip: a direct flight, flat bed, in-flight Blackberry, a friendly face at the airport, language lessons, online booking, e-tickets, flying alone, an iPod, high-speed Internet access, a power shower, a spa, crisp and clean cotton sheets, good hotel food and a concierge with contacts at all the best places. These are the principal ingredients for happy business travel.

Germany and the UK, two markets that make up more than half of all arrivals to Greece each year, have become very dependent on online travel. The German online travel market alone has multiplied in the past two years, outpacing the rest of Europe, according to a new report published by PhoCusWright Inc. titled European Online Travel Marketplace Update 2002-2006: Focus on Germany.