For another year, Romanians have taken the lion’s share of tourists who chose the northeastern Aegean island for their holidays
It seems that the island of Thassos is experiencing the “golden” summer season of 2019, after two consecutive difficult summers, when the health measures against the coronavirus pandemic were in many cases an obstacle for those who wanted to have a carefree vacation.
“This year’s season in Thassos, I think, competes with that of 2019, before the great outbreak of the coronavirus, which was a “golden” year for the entire Greek tourism”, explains, speaking to APE-MPE, the financial supervisor of the Hotel Chamber of Greece and president of the Association of Hoteliers of Kavala, Antonis Mitzalis.
With long experience in the hotel “business” and maintaining one of the largest and oldest hotel units on the island, Mr. Mitzalis underlines that this is the first summer after two years, when tourism actually restarts. “The tourists”, he points out, “especially the Europeans, after two consecutive years of confinement and under strict health measures, want to take a real vacation this year and with this as their goal, they don’t seem to be affected by anything. For our part, the people of tourism, after two years, we have to manage problems related only to the best possible customer service and not to taking sanitary and protective measures, as happened last year and the year before».
For another year, Romanians have taken the lion’s share of the tourists who chose the northeastern Aegean island for their holidays and according to Mr. Mitzalis “they probably make up even 40% of the total tourist stream Thassos receives this year».
The number of tourists from this Balkan country is so great that as aptly pointed out, speaking to APE-MPE, the president of the hoteliers of the island Paris Paraschoudis, “the Romanians themselves claim that it is easier to see a neighbor here than what in some neighborhood in Bucharest!”.
Mr. Paraschoudis underlines that the first two months of this year’s season, May and June, may have started sluggishly “however afterwards and up to this moment, the occupancy of the accommodations on the island is very high and the assessment is that with we will track this data until the end of August. August is traditionally the strong month for Thassos and by the time schools open, tourist flows from both the Balkans and Central European countries will be high. So far I would say that we have an increase in tourists of the order of 10 to 15% compared to the corresponding period of 2018 and 2019, which were the last two best years before the pandemic”.
The benefits of road tourism
Road tourism is, for one more year, the “strong card” for the island part of the Kavala Regional Unit as it offers easy and quick access to tourists from Balkan countries. As Mr. Paraschoudis points out, after the Romanians, the Bulgarians and the Serbs traditionally prefer the island for their summer holidays, while this year, Turkish tourists also made their appearance again.
“As every year, this year as well”, notes Mr. Paraschoudis, “we also have European tourists who come to the island organized by charter flights from Germany, Great Britain, the Czech Republic, Hungary and also from Poland. I would say that the Poles are a rising market and in fact several, as we are informed, have even expressed interest in investing in the island by purchasing tourist accommodation for their own use or for commercial exploitation».
Reduction of services provided due to lack of staff
The search for seasonal staff to staff the tourist units, which at the beginning of this summer season was a major problem, in front of which the entrepreneurs of the sector were unable, as they stated, to respond, seems to have finally been overcome with the restructuring of the services provided by the entrepreneurs .
“This year’s difficulty”, notes Mr. Mitzalis, “was finding staff to fill the vacant positions. After two years when tourism businesses were in intensive or under-functioning, this year we have a complete restart of tourism. In these two years it is logical that the human resources employed in tourism left in search of other jobs in order to survive. Some employees were suspended, but 30% of tourism workers could not be absorbed. It was therefore logical for them to go to the labor market to look for work. Some moved to the food industry, some to delivery, some found work in other companies and some went abroad».
“However, I think people in the industry have managed to cope by reducing the services provided to their customers and trying to operate as best they can with existing staff. This means that if a tourist unit planned for this year to offer that something extra to make a difference, it probably failed to do so due to a lack of sufficient staff and given that this year there was also a large job offer in the sector”, underlined Mr. Mitzalis .
The island of Thassos, in the last decade, is developing into one of the most popular destinations for Balkan tourists, who, as Mr. Paraschoudis notes, have “displaced” the Europeans who used to come to the island organized by charter flights. The friendly atmosphere, the intimacy, the hospitality, the beautiful natural environment, the good and attentive food, the clean seas but also the possibility to come to the island by road, through the ports of Kavala and Keramoti, are the elements that ultimately have greater special weight in the choice of the destination, with Thassos winning the “bet”.
Kavala is also a popular destination
At the same time, the city of Kavala has recovered a large part of its tourist product. Mr. Mitzalis underlines that the hotel accommodations both in the city and in the wider area are full as the city of Kavala is a popular destination for passing through, mainly, tourism.
“They may not have tourists here who will take multi-day vacations,” he notes, “but the city is an important stop for those who do road tourism and want to see many places. Kavala remains one of his main options and that is important. The city has a lot to offer the tourist during the summer season. There are many events and activities, there is night life, spotless beaches even in the center, it has a special beauty to present and all these highlight it. However, it must be emphasized that here the tourists come from different countries, who, with Kavala as their starting point, explore eastern Macedonia and Thrace».
Looking forward to next season
The people of the tourism sector in Kavala and Thassos do not hide their satisfaction and optimism for the current tourist season and as characteristically notes Mr. Mitzalis “after two bitter years we have work again, despite any problems, which are however manageable”. Mr. Paraschoudis, for his part, emphasizes with emphasis: “this year we have a normality in the general instability prevailing in society since the war in Ukraine and the energy problem. In any case, I don’t hide from you that many of us are already worried about the next season that will follow after a difficult winter, in all respects».
RES-EMP
View the news feed and get the latest news.
