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Greek Hoteliers Make Bad Forecasts About Q3 2012

Greek hoteliers keep suffering from political and economic uncertainty that makes negative impact on performance of hotels. In the second quarter of 2012 the decline of international arrivals to Greece estimated 4.6% comparing to first six months of 2011.

Athens suffers the most from the current situation. The international airport of this city featured the decline in the number of arrivals of 15.1%. However, the airport in Thessaloniki increased the number of international arrivals by 7%. As it is not hard to guess, the revenues of hotels in Athens fell down too. RevPAR of hotels in Athens fell down by 28.4%. Hotels in Thessaloniki improved their stats – RevPAR increased by 16.6% for first six months of 2012. Greek resort hotels also have nothing to be proud of. They started the season with a drop of RevPAR of 4.1%.

Experts name the worsening economic outlook of the country as the main negative factor. Prolonged election period, huge debt and unclear result of endless negotiations with creditors do not add positive outlook to Greece. According to the data provided by the Bank of Greece, the decrease of non-resident arrivals estimated 10.8%, and travel spending of non-residents lost 12.5%. Travel receipts from January to May 2012 were €211 million (US$260 million) less comparing to the same period of 2011. The country received 336,600 less visitors. Even though Greece was visited by 10% more British tourists, they spent almost 10% less. The decline in the number of German tourists was almost 10%, and the number of tourists from Russia was 21% lower than in 2011.

After the June elections and new government the volume of bookings increased as negative headlines disappeared from press, but it’s unlikely that bookings will reach the level of the previous year.

20.08.2012

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