It is undisputable that the global recession has a negative effect on tourism to all worldwide popular destinations. Greece is one of them. What is the situation concerning your country?
The global recession turned people’s concern into more ‘value for money’ customized habits, or if you like everyone due to the crisis is trying to find equal ways without any further cost to fulfill and not even to reduce the cost of their habits. In our country it has been proved so far that hospitality and service products with consistent quality are combined with reasonable value resisting the waves of low demand and extreme ‘special offers’ situation.
Do not forget that Greece is a famous and popular destination from ages ago among others; it has a negative effect concerning the cost of survey or increase of unemployment or even has less arrivals and overnights compared to other years, but it is just a pressure to be better or competitive with other destinations such as Spain, Turkey, Tunisia etc. We have a good product and tourism for our country is a recession proof, Greece has a Unique Selling Product, Crete has one of the best Unique Selling Products, so what we are afraid of? We offer services with ‘value for money’, our destination has quality and high standard services, the only thing is that we are facing a bad, or even peculiar situation that will end hopefully soon enough. Global recession has a negative effect on everything not only tourism, in every industry so, every destination and especially Greece is trying to keep the meaning of ‘value for money’ pure and untouchable. I am not a fortune teller, I as everyone else waiting to see the results in the end of the season and then we will take new measures for the upcoming year.
“M Hotels” is one of the leading hotel chains in Greece. What measures did you take to tackle this difficult season? What are the results so far?
‘M Hotels’ tackle the difficult season by preserving the standards of services and quality and by offering reasonable discounts which were not exceed the 10 to 12% off the trend market. We managed to reengineer the entire hospitality product by several ways such as creating a data base using the Customer Service Questionnaires. The above made understood that quality and value for money is the main principal for our hotels. We targeted publicity campaigns aiming first of all, after many years operation in Agios Nikolaos, Crete the brand name ‘M HOTELS’ meaning HERMES, CORAL and MIRABELLO BEACH & VILLAGE hotels and of course we focused to certain markets such as MICE market and Travel trend. We tried to find also New markets or existed ones that they stopped coming to Agios Nikolaos such as the Scandinavian market. Taking into consideration all the above we have long term results for example we succeed to have the Scnadinavian Market inside the hotels with good rates. The targeted publicity campaigns had results, the name to be familiar to the people not only in Greece but worldwide and we are going to continue with same campaigns to promote the destination plus the hotels. Overall every day we are thinking about the best way to promote our products and of course the area of Agios Nikolaos and I think we can handle the combination.
Most people believe that high prices and quality are related. What do you think? Is Greece an expensive destination?
High prices and quality are related? The answer is: it depends on the current circumstances. If we focus on the rule which is proved to be the right recipe during crisis, namely ‘ Value for money’ the quality is not always relevant with high prices and this just because the term ‘high prices’ is entirely relevant to each customer’s budget. Greece is not an expensive destination; it depends on how you see it. It depends where someone will choose to go, accommodation type and of course what is desired to be done. For the medium average clientele, of course Greece is an expensive destination. For the high standard clientele everything is perfect. There is no specific answer if our country is expensive or not. For sure and with no doubt Greece has benefits that are and will be sellable for many years after, such legacy, culture, different environmental climate and of course history. These are what we sell and believe me they are very expensive.
“Turning Crisis into Growth” is the title of the “2nd European Tourism Conference” that takes place in Thessaloniki, Greece on 30-31 October 2009. Is that possible? What are your plans for “the day after”?
‘Taking Crisis into Growth’ it is a huge subject of discussion and how can be succeeded. It is possible but in long terms speaking by activating solutions that are low cost and in the same time profitable. By taking into consideration the global recession and to avoid mistakes done in the past on the ‘good years’ of tourism. Taking into account that real values will be reconsidered the day after the financial crisis, M HOTELS will keep doing what has always done:
- Respect the Customer
- Preserve the Quality of Services
- Shift the produced product into the Customer’s Needs and Budget
By: N. Peter Kramer
