The number of people travelling from Australia to Greece is lower than previous years, Australian travel agents say.
Director of Jetset Marrickville, Helen Georgas, told Neos Kosmos that the number of people booking holidays to Greece is down from two years ago but probably equal to last year.
Ms Georgas said the majority of Jetset Marrickville’s customers, 95 per cent of whom she says are Greek, are not concerned by the financial crisis and recent strikes.
However, Ms Georgas said hotel bookings had decreased noticeably. “Compared to three years ago our hotel bookings are down significantly and I don’t know if that’s due to Internet booking, which is open market to people, or whether it’s that people are just going to Greece and because there’s plenty of bookings available they can find accommodation there rather than being committed beforehand,” she said.
Ms Georgas said her travel agency had not experienced any cancellations due to the financial crisis, but many Australian travellers have been inconvenienced by the recent strikes.
“Plenty of people have been disrupted by strikes, which is causing a nightmare for us because people have ferries and flights and accommodations booked and when these shut down it throws their whole holiday out, and we lose money because we have to fix problems.”
Kon Kavalakis, managing director of Grecian tours, said the number of people travelling to Greece is approximately the same as last year, taking into consideration that last year there were cheap deals to Athens and the rest of Europe, which many people took advantage of, irrespective of the recession.
“This year numbers are the same, which is basically bouncing back. A couple of years before that it was a lot busier and dropped off last year,” he said.
Mr Kavalakis said about 70 per cent of his customers travelling to Greece are of Greek descent. “We have a majority Greek clientele; a lot combine travels with visiting relatives and holidaying, they use Athens as a hub,” Mr Kavalakis said.
Asked if Greece still remained a destination for Greeks and their descendants Mr Kavalakis said this was changing.
“Travel to Greece is a niche market but Australians have made a destination of Greece, definitely after the 2004 Olympic games there has been an incline in mainstream tourists, so the exposure they got through the Olympics did help… The infrastructure has improved, it is a better destination and a favoured destination of Australians,” he said.
Peter Kaliakoudis, general manager of Exclusive World Travel, said the discounted airfares had impacted travel to Greece in 2009.
“Travel to Greece is down this year, not dramatically, but more than last year because what happened last year was travel to Greece was discounted, they had a deal and they sold about 20,000 tickets in a week or ten days,” he said.
Mr Kaliakoudis said his travel agency had not experienced any cancellations this year due to the strikes, however they recently had a big family cut their trip short due to the strikes, cancelled flights and inconvenience.
“They got fed up, packed their bags and came home early, they were sick of the strikes everywhere, flights being cancelled, it was chaos,” he said.
Director of Sales & Marketing at Athens Ledra Marriott Hotel, Angelo Sotiropoulos, said their bookings were down during the first half of this year due to the situation of the Greek economy.
“Apart from local issues we also experienced the Ash Cloud incident from Iceland where many Europeans had trouble travelling to many destinations,” he told Neos Kosmos.
While the peak period for Australians visiting Greece is May through to September, Mr Sotiropoulos said the amount of Australians visiting Greece is substantial and numbers are increasing.
“They mainly come during the summer months staying one or two nights in Athens then the majority escape to the nearby islands,” he said.
Mr Sotiropoulos said recent trends indicate that Australians are travelling on cruise packages more than in the past.
“This has increased visitors at our hotel as these packages include pre and post cruise overnights in Athens,” he said.
Mr Sotiropoulos said recent strikes did not create too much chaos.
“Flight cancellations were limited, as air traffic controllers in most strikes only did three to four hour stand offs this only caused delays with minimal problems,” he said.
He also said that isolated incidents with ferries being closed off were not considered a very frequent thing.
“I believe all hotels have been impacted by cancellations relating to the recent events. The largest impact was not the cancellations themselves but the strikes took place during the crucial period where many were holiday planning and chose other destinations,” he said.