Israel Top Int’l Source Market for Thessaloniki in 2022
Israeli travelers were back in Thessaloniki in 2022 after a pandemic-induced slowdown making 126,247 overnight stays last year but still down by 32.11 percent over pre-Covid 2019 when 185,946 overnights were recorded, the Thessaloniki Hotels Association (THA) said recently.
More specifically, according to research conducted by GBR Consulting on behalf of the THA, the second leading source market for the northern port city last year was the United States with 106,174 night stays compared to 93,590 made in 2019 and in third spot, Germany with 88,195 overnights compared to 86,599 before the pandemic broke out.
Overall when compared to 2019, most of the markets marked declines in 2022 in the number of overnight stays. Indicatively, Cyprus (-33.57 percent), Italy (-29.85 percent), Turkey (-27.89 percent), UK (-11.23 percent) and Bulgaria (-9.05 percent).
Meanwhile, travelers from Georgia (+39.70 percent), Romania (+24.05 percent), and Norway (+23.60 percent) increased the number of overnight stays in Thessaloniki in 2022 compared to 2019.
The top visitors overall to Thessaloniki in 2022 were the Greeks who made a total of 1.01 million stays compared to 1,119,582 in 2019 accounting for 47.88 percent of total stays but down by 9.11 percent compared to 2019.
Overall (domestic and international) in 2022, a total of 2.1 million overnight stays were recorded in Thessaloniki down by 12.96 percent over 2019 and 2.4 million night stays.
According to the THA, despite efforts to bring the city’s hotel prices closer rates charged in 10 other rival cities of similar size, namely Antwerp, Birmingham, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Budapest, Hamburg, Manchester, Salzburg – Thessaloniki was once again at the bottom of the list in terms of both average room rate and the revenue per available room.
According to the data, the average room rate (ARR) in 2022 increased over 2019 by 14.6 percent as did revenue per available room (RevPAR) by 2 percent reaching 56.32 euros.