What do the figures announced by the Thessaloniki Hotel Association show?
By more than doubling the overnight stays of travelers from Turkeydespite the long waits at the Gardens customs and with a decline in both the Russian and Israeli markets, affected by the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, closed 2023 for its hotels Thessaloniki.
According to data announced today, Tuesday (6/2) by the Thessaloniki Hotel Association (EXTH) at the top of the list of nationalities that spent the most overnight stays in the hotels of Thessaloniki last year, the Greeks were once againwith 1,131,690 (+11.21%).
In total in 2023 there was an increase in overnight stays by 14.75% compared to 2022 and a marginal decrease of 0.13% compared to the very “strong” year of 2019, the last before the pandemic. In absolute numbers, in 2023, 2,438,842 overnight stays by Greek and foreign visitors were recordedwhile in the years 2022 and 2019, 2,125,433 and 2,442,020 were carried out respectively.
“Last year the rest of the nationalities mostly showed an increase compared to 2022. In absolute numbers, 1,307,152 overnight stays by foreign visitors were recorded in 2023, a number increased by 17.99% compared to 2022, when 1,107 were recorded .819 overnight stays of foreigners. Special mention must be made of the Turks visitors of the region, whose overnight stays more than doubled, marking an increase of 115.99% last year compared to 2022, despite the inconvenience they – Turkish visitors – face when entering Greece, due to long hours of waiting at the antiquated customs of Gardens.
More specifically, in 2023, 94,212 overnight stays by Turks were recorded, while in 2022, 43,619 were recorded. It is therefore visible the increasing dynamics from the tourist public of the neighbor, which will improve even more, not only for Thessaloniki but also for the whole of Northern Greece, if the State immediately takes care of the solution of the problem in question” the announcement emphasizes, where it is also pointed out that in a meeting of the president of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andreas Mandrinou, with the consul general of Turkey in Thessaloniki, Serkan Gedik, the specific issue was discussed in detail and the conclusion reached was that Turkish visitors with a higher income will not even plan a trip to Greece by road if the issue is not resolved before the start of this summer season.
“Having already brought to the attention of the Deputy Minister of Tourism madam Elena Rapti the issue, EXTH thanks her for the immediate awareness and her actions to resolve it” is highlighted in the announcement according to the Athens News Agency.
The Russians are not even in the top 20
In the meantime, the effects on overnight stays from Israel and Russia, two major markets for the Thessaloniki region, are evident due to the circumstances prevailing in the countries of the region. The decrease in visitors from Russia continued last year, with their overnight stays reaching just 15,342 (66.86% decrease from 2022). In fact, 2023 was the first year since 2010 that this particular nationality was not even in the top twenty foreign nationalities. In absolute numbers, the reduction from 2022 amounted to 30,947 nights.
In 2023, visitors from Israel showed a marginal decrease (-0.52%) compared to 2022 and a very large decrease (-32.46%) compared to 2019, a record year for overnight stays in the region by this nationality. In absolute numbers, Israeli visitors spent 125,594 overnight stays last year, while in 2019 they had reached approximately 186,000 overnight stays.
The data of the research carried out on a monthly basis by the tourist studies and research company “GBR Consulting” on behalf of EXTH, show that compared to 2022, in 2023 there was an increase of 17.6% in RevPar (revenue per available room ), which amounted to 66.11 euros. Average room rate (ARR) growth was 9.1%. “However, despite Thessaloniki’s continuous effort to approach European pricing standards, in the benchmarking between it and ten other European cities of similar size (Antwerp, Birmingham, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Budapest, Hamburg, Manchester, Salzburg ), Thessaloniki remained last year in the last place in terms of both the average room price and the revenue per available room” is underlined in the announcement, where it is clarified that GBR derives its data from the largest statistical research company for hotels, i.e. STR Global (Hotel Data Worldwide) and not from EXTH.
