Nearly two-thirds of hoteliers in Greece say they can go bankrupt because of the blockage of the tourism sector, and most hotel owners expect their annual turnover to decline by more than 50% this year.

They also point out that employment in the sector has shrunk by 40%, which could mean losing about 45,000 jobs.

The data are from the third phase of the COVID-19 and Greek Hotels survey conducted between April 1 and 10, among 1,779 hotels in the country, or 18% of members of the Greek House of Hotels. It was carried out by the Institute for Tourism Research and Forecasts and shows that 65% of hoteliers consider it likely or very likely that they will have to declare bankruptcy. 46.6% consider it possible and 18.3% consider it very possible.

For seasonal hotels, the rate reaches 51.8% (40.5% of respondents consider it likely to declare bankruptcy and 11.3% consider it very likely), and 95% of hotels that are open year-round, expect a decline in turnover of more than 56 percent from the average. If this forecast is correct, it would mean an industry-wide annual loss of revenue of around 4.46 billion EUR in 2020.

57.3% of all-year-round hotels expect employment to decline by 40%, and 65.4% of seasonal hotels expect a 41.5% decrease in employment. Applying this data across the sector would mean losing over 45,100 jobs.

Financing needs are estimated at 498 million EUR for hotels operating throughout the year and 1.29 billion EUR for seasonal hotels, totaling 1.79 billion EUR, according to a survey.

Alexandros Vasilikos, the president of the chamber, says the tourism ministry has already proposed a package of measures. These include strict and comprehensive measures to protect the health of people in hotels, subsidize staff salaries and suspend arrears, as well as tax relief such as VAT reductions and cancellation of additional property taxes, agreements with working capital banks. and targeted interventions such as extending rental discounts by 40% depending on whether hotels are open this year or not.