Overview


SESSION 1: Greek State and the Hotel Sector
SESSION 2: Hotel Funding and Insurance
SESSION 3: The Keys to Upgrading the Greek Hotel Product
SESSION 4: Modern Hotel Marketing and Sales Tools

Suggested discussion topics:

  • Boosting of Competitiveness of Greek Hotels – Greek Brand
  • Battling Seasonality – Development of Alternative Forms of Tourism
  • Opening of New Markets
  • Increasing Funds and Effectiveness of Promotional Activities
  • Employment Subsidization

The core of the structural problem of Greek tourism lies in the numerous obstacles that the main cogs of its mechanism, hotel businesses, have to overcome in order to enhance their competitiveness. This panel will discuss various methods of reinforcing Greek hotels against foreign competition. The participants will explore ways to promote the Greek Brand, by answering the following key questions: how could Greece secure a prominent position in the tourism market? What practices are being applied internationally? What solutions are proposed in order to smoothen seasonality and at the same time increase the duration of the season of a particular tourist destination or hotel facility?

This panel will also propose the proper measures that the Greek state as well as hospitality businesses need to take in relation to the development of alternative forms of tourism and the opening of new markets, which constitute major tools in the effort to make Greek hotels more competitive.

Furthermore, various solutions for increasing the country’s promotion funds will be analyzed, while the “trick” to control campaign effectiveness will be revealed. Finally, given that tourism in general and hotels in particular are sectors of the economy that contribute significantly to the creation of job opportunities, the new framework for employment subsidization/ economic assistance of hotel employees will be presented.

  Back to top

Suggested discussion topics:

  • National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) – National Development Law
  • New and Innovative Forms of Hotel Funding
  • Settlement of Outstanding Loans – Granting of New Loans
  • Hotel Risk Insurance
  • Insurance against Tour Operators Bankruptcy

The difficulty of re-funding hotel businesses by banks, high interest rates and debt settlement are issues that Greek hotel owners have to deal with on a daily basis. In this panel, experts from the field of tourism will analyze new and innovative forms of hotel funding by the NSRF, the Regional Operational Programs (ROP) as well as the National Development Law and explain methods to obtain higher loan capitals with lower interest rates. Furthermore, they will discuss loan settlement options and ways to achieve agreements with better terms.

It is a fact that Greek hotels are under-insured and many hotel owners ignore that choosing the right insurance company plays a key role in the protection of their businesses against any kind of risk and the prompt payment of insurance compensations. In this panel all available types of insurance coverage will be analyzed.

Hospitality Forum and Awards will explain all the factors/ criteria on which hotel owners should base their choice of insurance company, ensuring that this decision will add value to their products. This panel will also present the best practices related to the maximization of the protection of hotel businesses and propose solutions for insuring hotels against the phenomenon of Tour Operators’ bankruptcy.

Back to top

Suggested discussion topics:

  • Technology
  • Education and Personnel Management
  • Facility Management
  • Procurements
  • Infrastructure Upgrade – Enrichment
  • Consulting Services – Reservations Systems

Undoubtedly, a high level of technological equipment and the adoption of modern technological solutions represent an important competitive advantage for a hotel business. This panel will focus on the technological tools mostly used in the international hotel market currently, helping businesses stand out from their competition and adding value to their products.

In addition, the participants will discuss human resources management and the enhancement of its results through proper personnel education, modern facility management methods that offer quality-related competitive advantages as well as the designing of viable procurements systems which help hotel businesses reduce their costs and increase the quality of their services. This panel will also suggest solutions for enriching hospitality products and upgrading hotel facilities. Consulting services companies will present methods of promoting hotel businesses through various channels of the market by selecting advanced technological tools. Finally, this session will explain the advantages of on-line reservations programs and the criteria on which hotel owners should base their relevant choices.

Back to top

Suggested discussion topics:

  • Hotel Management Companies
  • Reservations Portals
  • Modern Promotion and Advertising Methods
  • Utilization of Social Media

Hotel owners should have at their disposal all modern marketing and sales tools that will enable them to overcome competition and significantly increase their sales.

This panel will discuss under which circumstances hotel owners should choose to work with a management company to promote their businesses as well as all the crucial factors they should take into consideration when deciding to do so. In addition, experts will present the strategies related to the designing of the ideal portal and the choice of the appropriate company that will develop an application for mobile phones.

Furthermore, they will analyze modern methods for the promotion and advertising of hotels and discuss the utilization of social media as means of promotion of a hotel unit through social networks. The term social media includes all electronic platforms where users have the possibility to create content by interconnecting and interacting.

Apart from facebook and twitter there are many other social media, which will be presented at the Conference, all having the following characteristics:

  • Users’ interconnectivity
  • Creation of content by users

This panel will also discuss wikis – platforms which allow collaborative development of content, the best known among them being Wikipedia – as well as social bookmarking sites, where users may organize the links of their favorite Internet sources. Finally, there are various platforms for reviews (of businesses, products etc), discussion (forums), news production/ editing by the users and online sales.

This Forum will focus on the 4 main tactics that companies use in the era of digital and social media:

  • Space for advertising their brands
  • Indirect promotion activities
  • Flashmobs
  • Surprise gifts

In this last session, experts will present the strategies that hotel owners should follow so as to maximize the benefits from the use of social media.

Back to top