ehotelier – The challenges for small hotels: Greece case study.

While most of my personal tourism experience is based in the Caribbean its refreshing and disturbing to see that other countries in very different travel destination are experiencing some of the same issue we have in the tropics.

Philia Tounta, MBA, Ba, Di, a travel and tourism consultant and ambassador of tourism in Chania, Crete, Greece. cautions that “I believe smaller hotels better support the local economy, since they provide only accommodation and leave the guests to move into the local market for dining and other services.”

Unfortunatly the small hotel sector is not doing great in these hard times made harder by search engines, that were once a friend of small local properties, who have now made it impossible for them to get onto the first pages of organic search. At the same time the vibrant part of the market is the luxury area but its not the mass market and all inclusive in all areas are seeing growth.

“All Inclusives here have seen strong growth, and this year, many large hotels went well by dropping their prices (some to as low as 14 euro per night).” Wow – that worse than the Caribbean region.

From the travelers point of view we understand the allure of an all inclusive holiday, but it is short sighted. Its fundamentally bad for the local economy in a lot of cases, and often poor value to travelers, who are cheated out of a real local experience in favour of buffet meals of soggy vegetables and dry chicken.

It does not have t be like that and in some cases it is not but i would not go on an all-incluive just in case it is. St. Lucia is perhaps the capital of all-in holidays and there are many who will tell you how bad it is for the local economy. A couple of main chains fly in their own provision leaving the local supplies out of the loop. One of those chains came to Barbados in 2014 and the only rum in its bar came from Jamaica. Now that insulting to a country that prides itself on starting the rum business, was the largest produce at one time in the world and has some of the fines vintage rums you will find anywhere.

So much for the rant – check out the article for lots of parallels..http://ehotelier.com/insights/2014/10/20/the-challenges-for-small-hotels-greece-case-study