According to a large rolling pan-European survey conducted by the European Travel Commission (ETC), southern Europe and Mediterranean destinations such as Greece, Italy and Spain are seeing a 7% increase in Europeans’ travel intentions between now and March this year.

Specifically, 20% want to travel to visit a city and 19% to have a beach holiday.

Climate change, better prices and less traffic at destinations are some of the reasons driving this trend. A trend that, if Greece can exploit, it will be able to “break” the seasonality of tourism, which is reflected in the fact that around 60% of the country’s travel receipts are made between July and August, according to data from the Bank of Greece.

Seasonality overloads destinations, tests the resilience of infrastructure and local communities and limits full employment in the sector throughout the year. Most hotels, however, avoid opening earlier, for example in March, and any expansion of their operation is only in October and the first days of November so far.

A study by the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE), which was also based on a PwC survey published a few days ago, clearly shows the competitiveness deficit of Greek hotels compared to those of other Mediterranean countries; competitiveness that is burdened by higher tax rates, fees and insurance charges. In short, the study shows that a typical Greek four-star hotel without very high occupancy operates at a loss both in the months before and after the summer period, the so-called shoulder months.

“Although Greece has significantly improved its position in terms of the tax competitiveness of businesses in general in recent years, the same is not true of taxation in the tourism sector, due to high accommodation VAT and resilience fee, as well as non-wage costs, especially for the highest salaries,” INSETE reports.