This chapter examines the purpose and effectiveness of a new tourism trademark, the “Boutique hotel” project, which has been designed and implemented by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels. The scope is to encapsulate the efforts of the last five years to lay the institutional groundwork for a professionally operated accommodation system of boutique hotels, a relatively new form of accommodation in Greece. This chapter will analyse the goals, terms, and conditions for defining this tourism brand and its operating system. Also, it examines in detail the structural characteristics of boutique hotels in Greece, as they resulted from a survey of the 178 hotels that had received this certification. Boutique hotels in Greece are a successful example of the resilience of hospitality businesses during the periods of both the financial crisis and, subsequently, of the COVID-19 pandemic, given that the very nature of their services and products, enables them to immediately respond and adapt to new situations and cater for evolving consumer needs, ultimately striving for survival and for the return to a new reality of sustainable tourism development.
TopIntroduction
In the late 2000s, Greece entered a period in which the debt crisis dictated sharp cuts in budget expenditure. The deep recession resulted in labour market disruptions. In this context and mainly caused by political uncertainty, there was a short-term decline in international arrivals at Athens airport, which combined with a downward trend in international tourist arrivals led to a hotel industry crisis (see figure 1). However, according to the WTTC (2020), currently, as tourism becomes more and more resilient, the average time required for tourist arrivals to return to pre-crisis levels is usually 19.4 months. Therefore, Greek tourism managed to survive and cope with the crisis in the best possible way, thus contributing and supporting the economic structure of the country and playing a primary role in the bid for growth of the Greek economy.
Figure 1. Trends in international tourist arrivals (million), 1950-2019
The period 2010-2019, as shown in figure 2, is characterized by increased investment activity in terms of the establishment of units of the three highest categories, but also the conversion of old or listed buildings into tourist accommodation. More specifically, 86% of the commissioned units were of the 3 highest hotel categories (91% in terms of rooms). On the other hand, 70% of the units that ceased to operate belonged to the 2 lowest categories (54% in terms of rooms). This points to a fundamental restructuring of the hotel industry in Greece, whereby the majority of beds currently belong to 3* to 5* star category hotels, which account for 73% of the total accommodation capacity.
Figure 2. Hotel unit evolution in terms of star categories, 1960-2022
This significant increase of the number of 5* hotels, in particular, goes hand in hand with a decrease in their average size (in 2019 it was 302 beds, against 326 beds in 2010). This fact indicates that hotels of this category are being transformed from large and impersonal buildings to smaller units that provide their guests with personalized contact and upgraded services (Research Institute for Tourism 2020). The development of 4* and 5*star hotels seems to be linked both to a hotel capital centralization trend with the establishment of mixed-use hotel schemes between foreign operators and big domestic chains in the form of mergers and acquisitions, as well as to the increase of the number of boutique hotels.
Taking into account the above evolutionary path of the Greek hotel sector in the years of the financial crisis, this paper will analyse the goals, terms and conditions for defining this national tourism brand, the operating system and the results of the first five years since its implementation. Especially, in mid-2022, 2,5 years after the onset of the pandemic Covid-19, discussion focuses on the form of all the components of tourism and the hotel industry in the sector’s transition to an improved state of sustainable development. From this perspective, boutique hotels could play a key role in the endeavour to strengthen the hotel sector, as they involve small hotels of distinctive design and high specifications that, above all, are operationally flexible. Thus, assisted by their main professional objective, which is the development of personal connection and homelike warmth and comfort as a major aspect of hotel production, the assurance of health that will be sought after in the years to come will emerge in the best way possible.