According to a report this week from Greek Travel Pages (GTP) Greek hoteliers are readying themselves for yet another pandemic winter and low occupancy numbers. At least, some Greek hoteliers are.
The head of the Hellenic Hoteliers Federation, Grigoris Tasios was quoted saying yesterday, that the holiday numbers look “disappointing” for December holiday season bookings at city hotels in Athens, Thessaloniki and other mainland destinations. Based on Tasios’ past media outreaches, I guess we can expect requests by hoteliers for financial relief are already being typed out.
Meanwhile, Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias is on his soap box bragging about Greece tourism positives. This time the former basketball player and health minister says winter destination hotels are seeing record occupancy numbers since his ministry set out to boost winter tourism. Kikilias was cited by GTP saying:
“For the first time in our country, we are proceeding with the creation of a distinct campaign for winter tourism to make it clear that Greece is developing tourism in all its regions.”
As an observer, I wonder if this means mountain hotels won’t be asking the government to subsidize them? If so, this will perhaps free up funds to help people made homeless by Crete earthquakes and the summer forest fires that decimated 125,000 hectares of forest and arable land.
Well, not to worry. Last week Kikilias reiterated Greece’s 10-year tourism plan to Newsweek, so the checks will certainly be in the mail to all the Hellenic hoteliers, the refugees of earthquakes, and the victims of rampaging wildfires. Everyone knows tourists don’t flock to poverty and disaster stricken destinations, so fixing these problems has to be a priority on the new tourism minister’s list.
