Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts

With less than two months to go before the start of the summer tourist season, industry operators are worried about the final number of workers who will drive Greece's heaviest industry forward. After all, this year was preceded by a difficult 2023 with significant labor shortages.

Greek hotels have to deal with considerable losses of 1 billion euros from deposits not paid in 2020 for 2021 due to the pandemic and from debts that have not been collected, on top of the slump in revenues last year: Hotel turnover dropped 78% in 2020 to €1.83 billion, against €8.357 billion in 2019, according to a new survey.

Almost two in every three hoteliers think they might go bankrupt due to the tourism sector shutdown, while the vast majority of hotel owners expect their annual turnover to decline by more than 50 percent this year. They also speak of employment in the sector shrinking 40 percent, which would mean the loss of some 45,000 jobs.

The cost to the entire Greek economy of UK tour operator Thomas Cook's collapse will come to some 2.5 billion euros, or about 1.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to a study by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels.

The sum of 2.5 billion is made up of the following:

The numbers of Greek guests at the country's hotels have been in constant decline over the last decade, with more than five out of every six overnight stays concerning foreigners. This is happening in the context of an increase in hotel room availability and in room rates, according to the hoteliers' chamber.

Investment in new hotels in Greece has suffered considerably in the last few years, according to a survey by the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts (ITEP).

Greeks slashed their spending on domestic tourism by 64 percent between 2008 and 2014, according to a study published on Wednesday by the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts (ITEP) that measured the impact of the economic crisis on the sector.