More than 1 in 3 houses in Mykonos are available for short-term rental in the high season, more than 1 in 4 in Santorini and 1 in 10 houses in Corfu. These three destinations have emerged as "champions" in terms of the proportion of Airbnb-type accommodation compared to all the houses on these Greek islands.
In the municipality of Athens the corresponding percentage is just a little over 2%, with a greater concentration, as is reasonable, around the Acropolis and the historical districts; in Thessaloniki a little over 1%; and, in Chania, a little under 8%.
The figures come from the Panhellenic Association of Property Managers (PA.SY.DA.), which last Friday gathered its members at the Athens Chamber of Commerce, presenting the latest statistics on short-term stays in Greece and presenting their own proposals in the debate that has opened on the regulation of the market, which has been strongly requested by hoteliers lately and has been announced by the government itself (especially for those who lease a larger number of properties of a more professional nature, excluding individual private individuals who may to rent 1-2 houses).
Based on the analysis of PA.SY.D.A. in total, in 2022, 144,857 short-term rental accommodations have appeared on short-term rental platforms (Airbnb, booking, VRBO, etc.), from 136,658 in 2019 (+6%) with significant fluctuations depending on the season due to the high seasonality of Greek tourism.
The numbers also show the growth of the market, while especially for the capital region the maximum number of listings peaked at over 12,000 accommodations, with an average price of 95 euros per night.
Zappeio, Poligono, Emporiko Trigono-Plaka-Acropolis were where the highest average prices were recorded, from 148 euros to 126 euros, while based on the analysis by the specialist company Tourix, the highest number of accommodations this year was recorded in Emporiko Trigono and Plaka, with 2,145 entries, in Neo Kosmos with 1,167, Koukaki with 968 and followed by the Exarchia with 835.
Indicative of the intense seasonality is that in the third quarter of the year, the registrations reached 12,200, while in the last, fourth quarter, they fall below 10,000. In relation to those who have multiple entries, they account for over 6 in 10, while around 37% have a single entry.
As for the statistics per region, always based on PASYDA data, of the almost 428,000 residences in the municipality of Athens, just over 9,000 are available for short-term accommodation, or otherwise a rate of 2.24%.
In Corfu, it is close to 7,700 residences or 9.11%. In Mykonos, out of a total of 9,591 residences, 3,547 are available for short-term accommodation (36.98%) in the high season and in Santorini 26.5% or otherwise 4,637 residences.
The proposals
At this juncture, for their part, the administrators and PASYDA speak of a generalised attack by Greek hoteliers and consider that "it is time to react strongly and prove that short-term leasing is here to stay definitively and to add to our tourism product a different form of accommodation that adapts to what travelers worldwide are looking for."
"We believe that instead of limiting the development of an entire sector that contributes a large percentage to the tourism product (15% in 2022) and with revenues according to the AADE of more than 3.5 billion euros in 2022, it would be good to give incentives to further development and attracting investors. The short-term rental is here to stay and is the fastest growing tourism product worldwide.
"Our country is already in the top 10 destinations and it would be really unfair to prevent it with restrictive measures instead of taking advantage of this potential. We will not accept any measure that will reduce even 1 visitor to our country.
"Traffic in city destinations such as Athens almost doubled without a corresponding increase in rooms in hotels operating at 100% occupancy. This means that the additional arrival of visitors is due to short-stay accommodation. If they didn't exist, visitors would simply prefer another country for their stay."
Stefania Souki is a columnist for New Money.
