Lampsa Group Adding to Athens Hotel Market

Lampsa owns the Hotel Grande Bretagne and King George on Syntagma Square.

The building that once housed the historic Kings Palace in Athens is expected to open its doors as a new upscale hotel in about two years time.

Lampsa Hellenic Hotels CEO Tasos Homenidis and Senior Executive Director Chloe Laskaridis during a recent Christmas event at the King George Hotel in Athens.

The nine-storey property, recently leased to Lampsa Hellenic Hotels SA for a period of 30 years, is located on Kriezotou and Panepistimiou streets, in very close distance to Syntagma Square. According to sources, renovation works to the building are expected to begin in about six months and the investment is estimated to reach some 20 million euros. The hotel will operate as a five-star establishment, include around 195 rooms and suites and aim to appeal to young travelers.

Sources say that the new hotel will operate as a member of one of the hotel chains with which Lampsa collaborates with, such as Marriott, Hyatt and Accor.

Lampsa already owns the Hotel Grande Bretagne and King George, both located in the heart of Athens on Syntagma Square.

According to sources, with Athens’ strong comeback as a popular tourism destination, this December is turning out to be the best of the last 15 years for the two hotels that are seeing an occupancy of over 60 percent.

Lampsa invests in Athens

Moreover, Lampsa is expected next year to go ahead with investments of some 15-17 million euros for the refurbishment of the Hotel Grande Bretagne and the King George hotels. Plans include the addition of 20-30 rooms to the Hotel Grande Bretagne and another 10 rooms to the King George.

In a recent statement, Lampsa underlined its confidence in Greek tourism and in the tourism upgrading of the Greek capital. The group covered the cost of recent refurbishment works at Syntagma Square in cooperation with the Municipality of Athens, which amounted to two million euros. Works at the square included the complete change of lighting (250,000 euros) and the decoration and illumination of the municipality’s Christmas Tree, which cost 70,000 euros.

This year, Lampsa is seeing a turnover increase of 20 percent and growth in jobs in its hotels, sources say. A further 10 percent growth of the group’s turnover is expected in 2018.

Owned by the Laskaridis Group, Lampsa also owns the Sheraton Hotel on Rhodes and the Hyatt Regency and the Mercure Excelsior in Belgrade.