Interview with the Vice President of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels and President of the Laganas Zakynthos Hotel Owners Association, Mrs. Christina Tetradis, in grtraveller and Margarita Manousou
The vice president of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels and president of the Laganas Zakynthos Hotel Association, Mrs. Christina Tetradi, speaks to grtraveller about the dynamics and challenges of this year’s tourist season.
How do you predict that arrivals will move in 2022 compared to 2021 and 2019? It is certain that Russia’s war in Ukraine will significantly reduce the number of visitors from these markets. Have you taken steps that will help attract visitors from other markets?;
This season has positive signals and is showing momentum. But the protracted war in Ukraine has changed the situation. The main consequence is that we are now “forgetting” the Russian and Ukrainian markets, while problems have also started to be detected in the traffic from Poland and Romania. In particular, in 2019 we had around half a million Russians with about half a billion in revenue and around 150,000 Ukrainians.
This year, arrivals are potential, but in any case we did not anticipate such numbers. It is a percentage that can be absorbed by other markets. Certainly there are some exclusive partnerships, there is clearly a problem there. And the goal is to see what we can do.
Poland in particular, which was the number two in bookings and arrivals on the islands in June 2021, has postponed the actual opening from May to after 15 June, and has also reduced the number of rooms in the signed contracts. At the moment, traffic from the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, has not been affected.
Businesses […] operate at 2019 prices,
in order in the pandemic and on our way out
from it to make
the tourist product of our country competitive.
Among the positive elements we can include the increase in direct flights from the USA, which greatly helps the tourist traffic. It is a dynamic, high-quality market with above-average purchasing power.
Another parameter that does not allow us to make predictions is the possibility that this year we will move to last-minute bookings, which does not help planning.
As far as the numbers are concerned, it is difficult to make any predictions while the war is still going on, as is the energy crisis.
The increase in the cost of energy, which is expected to burden the prices of air & ferry tickets, do you think it will affect the tourist product of Zakynthos?
Admittedly, the costs have reached very high levels. Energy costs show an increase of 80%, while for consumables and raw materials, such as food, the cost increase reaches 30-50%. With regard to supplies, we are moving in a “stock market” context with constant price increases, without knowing where it will stop. Imagine that our suppliers change price lists almost every week. Several hoteliers did not open their hotels with low occupancy rates, they opened after the end of May or even June or not yet, waiting for occupancy rates to exceed 50%.
What do you predict that the prices of the tourism product in Zakynthos will be in 2022 compared to 2021 -2019?
Due to closed contracts with tour operators, businesses are operating at 2019 prices, as happened in 2020 and 2021 in order to make our country’s tourism product competitive during the pandemic and during our exit from it. At the same time, there is also a fairly large number of visitors who come with the voucher 2019 and 2020. In the same vein, due to energy costs, it is also very likely that the price of packages will increase, with the result that the average European consumer will not be able to afford the cost. Apart from the uncertainty, businesses will not be able to absorb the increased costs and some of them will be passed on in the final package certainly for 2023.
