Greece Hotel Market

The Greece hotel market includes more than 9700 hotels and more than 115,000 restaurants, cafeterias, bars and entertainment centres. Seasonality of demand for the hotels and food service market sectors factors heavily in the business models adopted. The Hotel and Restaurant industry employs approximately 640,000 people in Greece which accounts for 13% of Greece's total workforce. The profitability of hotels and food-service outlets has been heavily impacted by the economic crisis.

The largest players in the Greece hotel market are local franchise holders for international brands such as Ionian Hotel Enterprises, Lampsa Hellenic Hotels and Regency Entertainment. Regency Entertainment was recently known as Hyatt Regency Hotels and Tourism (Hellas) and represents the most profitable hotel chain in Greece. The other significant hotel players in the Greek market are Daskalantonakis Group-Grecotel and Astir Palace Vouliagmenis.

In recent months, the Greek hospitality sector has suffered weak tourist demand with only 62.7 million nights spent in Greece in 2010. Out of this number 16.4 million were by Greek residents and 46.3 million by foreign residents. In 2010, the number of nights stayed in hotels in Greece fell by 2.3% which was largely due to a significant drop in demand from Greek residents.

Hotels in the Athens region reported relatively low occupancy rates of 61 percent during the period January to October 2010. Athens hotels also reported a 11% fall in revenues and a 4.4% fall in room occupancy rates in October 2010. Three and four star hotels also noticed a fall in revenues during the most popular months of July and August.

The following hotels are operating in Greece:

The 20 largest hotel brands in the Greece hotel market are listed below: