From overoptimism and “we won’t know where to put so many tourists this year”, we reached the offers. With different expectations, the season started in Crete and it is developing differently, this is what the operators of the sector say, who now keep a smaller basket to put the tourist receipts.

Giorgos Sfakianakis, president of the Pancrete Association of Hotel Managers, told “PATRIS” that many hoteliers are already offering discounts of up to 40% from the original price to fill the beds of their units in June and July.

In Greece this year, the tourist package that includes air ticket, accommodation and food, increased by approximately 40% and our country is more expensive than other competitive destinations.

For example, as he mentioned, if the one-week holiday package for Crete reaches 1,500 euros, in Turkey in a five-star hotel it is 1,200 euros, in Egypt 1,000 euros, in Albania, which is also trying to get a piece of the tourism pie, 800 euros.

Where did the great expectations rest?

In the midst of a European crisis, foreign visitors are re-planning their vacations, but also what they will spend, and the pace of the flow of bookings that was stormy in January and February, creating very high expectations for the course of the year, has started to decrease noticeably.

Dimitris Koumbarakis, general secretary of the Panhellenic Federation of Hotel Managers pointed out that the offers start from 20% and reach 40% and emphasized that to date, a drop in traffic has been recorded in many markets such as German, French, Austrian, Dutch.

“Offers are a wrong tactic”

“It is clear that tourism exists, but in no way is it what we initially expected,” the businessmen emphasize, while many say that it is a mistake that the discounts have already started.

  “Demand is there, the offers are the wrong tactic,” underlined the president of the Panhellenic Federation of Hotel Managers, Giorgos Pelekanakis, speaking to “P”, noting that some people were in a hurry and should not have done it.

He emphasized that today on the island there are 180,000 hotel beds, 120,000 rental apartments and 100,000 airbnb beds, which shows how much the number of entrepreneurs who claim part of the tourist revenue shared by the island has grown.