Investment activity in new construction, renovations and upgrades of hotels in Greece is continuing this year at about the same pace as last year, when it amounted to 2.805 billion euros. Yet if one includes what is happening in parallel sectors to hotels, such as rental rooms, tourism villas and holiday homes that are developed for tourist exploitation, it exceeds €5 billion.
As a result, the quality of the offered hospitality infrastructure is steadily increasing. This is evident mainly in the increase in the number of five and four-star hotels. Of the amount of €2.805 billion spent on new construction and renovation of hotels, a part concerns imported goods and services and the rest services and goods of domestic added value.
Taking this distribution into account, it is estimated that the investment in the hotel sector in 2024, net of imports, amounts to approximately €1.688 billion. These figures result from the study of the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE) on the contribution of tourism to the Greek economy.
At the same time, the annual report of the Bank of Greece on Monetary Policy 2024-2025 speaks of a trend of upgrading the hotel potential in Greece in 2024, with 57% of hotel units belonging to the three upper categories.
“In 2024, 10,104 hotel units were operating in Greece with a total of 447,363 rooms and 894,854 beds. The qualitative upgrade of the hotel potential continued, mainly through the increase in five-star units by 5% compared to 2023,” it noted.
The amount of €2.8 billion invested last year in hotels includes the costs for new constructions, the number of new rooms constructed, according to the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (HCH), as well as the average estimated cost of construction of new rooms per star category based on market data.
Also included are the costs for renovations, the number of rooms per category at the end of the previous year based on HCH, as well as the average cost of renovation, repair and maintenance of existing rooms per star category, according to INSETE.