Report: Greece’s luxury resorts jammed rich playgrounds

With another record tourism season underway – even as reports said half of Greeks during a seven-year-long crisis can’t afford a week’s vacation in their homeland – there’s a scramble among the rich to find rooms at 5-Star hotels and luxury resorts.

The occupancy rate for those popular destinations of the wealthy is close to 100 percent for the rest of the summer, Kathimerini said it had found in a survey. One of the biggest online travel agents has put the average occupancy rate for luxury accommodation on Santorini, Corfu and Rhodes at about 99 percent.

On Myconos, the average occupancy rate is 97 percent, while at the Cretan resort of Elounda it is 89 percent despite charges that are prohibitive for all but the rich.

The price of a double room at a five-star hotel on Santorini for five nights between Aug. 11-16 is 40,000 euros ($47,011) or some $9,404 a night. On Corfu, the equivalent is 15,244 euros ($17,916) while on Myconos, a favorite place for half-naked college girls dancing on nightclub table tops, it is 11,647 euros ($13,688), at Elounda 7,640 euros ($8979) and on Rhodes 6,200 euros, about $7286.

According to recent data released by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, 444 luxury hotels operate in Greece, out of a total 9,730 units. Their total capacity runs to 67,407 rooms that can sleep 137,210 people. The total number of hotel rooms in Greece is 407,146, which can provide accommodation for up to 788,553 people.

Most five-star hotels can be found in the southern Aegean, which has 144. Crete is next on the list with 97 five-star hotels, which have 18,844 rooms that can provide beds for 40,742 visitors.

Based on research carried out by National Bank (NBG), the proportion of high-income tourists visiting Greece fell from 27 percent of the total in 2008 to 23 percent in 2016 before this year’s big bump up.