Op-Ed: ‘Small-sized Tourist Accommodations are Prepared for the post-Covid Era’ – Panagiotis Tokouzis

The Greek Travel Pages (GTP) has provided a podium for Greece’s key tourism figures to share their vision for the day after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“An unprecedented situation for global health, the global economy and international tourism has emerged in the past year and a half, creating a new order of things in the Tourism and Travel sector worldwide.

The effects of the pandemic have hurt the small-sized tourist accommodation industry to the fullest extent, and it does not seem like this is going to change in the near future, as both demand and bookings remain at extremely low levels.

However, the global tourism community is already looking towards the future of Tourism and Travel, when the pandemic crisis will be a thing of the past.

In this post-Covid era, with the competition in the hospitality industry being even more intense and market players being called upon to live up to the new conditions and the new, emerging needs of travellers, small-sized tourist accommodations declare themselves ready to respond to the challenges of providing immersive and personalized experiences.

In this context, the Hellenic Confederation of Tourist Accommodation Entrepreneurs (SETKE) has implemented a number of innovative services, aimed at establishing small-sized tourist accommodations as a quality hospitality option.

The “Alternative Holiday Experiences by SETKE”, aiming for the creation of a new kind of tourist accommodation addressed to audiences with specific interests, such as gastronomy, cycling, sightseeing etc., and the “Breakfast Basket” program by SETKE, which brings the traveller in contact with the local cuisines and with natural, Greek products, create a new era for small-sized tourist accommodations.

These products offer a different kind of vacation to their visitors, adapted to the new trends and challenges of the modern travel market for authentic, immersive travels.”

* This Op-Ed originally appeared in the Greek Travel Pages (GTP) annual printed edition for 2021. Press here for more information.