As the tourism season is peaking in Chania, so is the demand for hotel and restaurant staff. Although it is now past the end of June and most businesses have been operating for at least two months, there are visible gaps in staffing. Following a survey of want ads for staff by the Haniotika Nea, it would appear that the greatest demand from hotels and restaurants is for cooks, waiters, dishwashers and kitchen staff generally. Especially in hotels, there is an enormous demand for waiting staff and to a lesser extent for reception and maintenance personnel.
“There were shortages of available staff before, but now we are at the peak of the tourist season these deficits have become more apparent, because as the number of visitors increase so do their needs for service,” the vice-president of the Hoteliers Union of Chania Manolis Stamatakis told Haniotika Nea.
Pointing out that many tourist businesses which have been in operation since April are still looking for staff, Mr Stamatakis said: “Many of them want to have back-up, because they will very often get a phone call from an employee saying that they won’t be coming back to work as they have found another job. That happens with tourist businesses which are relatively far from the city of Chania, they’re in remote areas! There was a big problem with lack of staff and it has persisted despite our colleagues’ great efforts [to fill the places].”
At the moment hotels in the Nomos of Chania are reported to be running at over 90 per cent capacity, despite the fact that new hotel units have been opening in recent years and the number of the short-term holiday rentals remains high. The problem of staff shortages in the leisure sector is not restricted to Chania, however, with the total vacancies for the nation currently estimated at 30,000.
The hotel employees’ view
Hotel employees see the reasons for the lack of staff a little differently. “A large part of those who formerly worked in the tourist sector no longer want to work there as there are no rest days, the 8-hour day becomes 10 hours, in many cases without insurance and adequate payment, so why would anyone want to work in a hotel or a restaurant?” asks Manolis Bamiakis, president of the Hotel Employees’ Association of Chania.
Many of his colleagues, he says, “prefer to work in jobs which give less money but where the conditions are more humane, they get rest days and can also get leave. They prefer less profitable work, instead of work in unacceptable conditions (with people passing out, accidents which are often covered up) throughout the summer and afterwards in the winter only getting 3 months’ unemployment benefit. You can’t live under such conditions!”
Mr Bamiakis laid particular emphasis on the inadequacy of inspections by the authorities: “In Chania the Labour Inspectorate is extremely understaffed. You can’t have one and a half people inspecting businesses throughout the Nomos! Their people have a good attitude, they want to carry out inspections but how can they when their service is so understaffed? It’s a very serious matter since when a businessman knows that there will be an inspection and he risks being fined he will at least follow the basic regulations.
“Finally, since we are a small community in Chania, we see that some businesses are continually looking for staff throughout the year. That is not by chance, and since everything gets around, everyone knows those who are not reliable employers and they don’t want to work for them.”
Increased incomes in the first quarter
Figures issued by the Greek Statistics Office, ELSTAT, show an increase in income in the hospitality sector for the first quarter of 2024 right across the country, with Crete one of the regions showing the biggest increases. ELSTAT have published the results of a survey carried out by Tourix, a marketing and data analysis company for the tourism and travel industry, which points out that income in the first quarter of the year comes mainly from local consumption and domestic tourism. The income to hospitality businesses was €1.8 billion for the period January- March 2024, with increases registered in all the regions over the same period in 2023.
One of the most important regions of Greece for the hospitality sector, Crete showed increases for each of its Regional Units, i.e. Chania 19%, Heraklion 10%, Lasithi 12% and Rethymnon 9%. Attica, the region with the highest sector income in the country, with a total turnover of almost €900 million, registered an increase of nearly 19% for January to March 2024 compared with the same period in 2023.
A less profitable year than 2023
Despite the initially encouraging signs, businesses actually operating in the Chania area are predicting a less profitable year than 2023, according to another survey carried out by Haniotika Nea. Although the season is now nearing its peak, there is considerable variation from one area to another, especially inland, and from one accommodation unit to another, with almost all businesses saying that they expect 2024 to be less profitable than 2023. The main issues are reported to be as follows:
– More than ever visitors are proving more cautious in their daily expenditure, both in hotels and restaurants.
– The big hotels and those working with the tour operators are showing high rates of occupancy, but many of them have reduced their prices in order to be more competitive.
– The other hotels and tourist accommodation units are showing lower occupancy rates than last year, and bookings for July and August are not growing at a satisfactory level.
– Many operators estimate that the increased numbers of new villas, AirBnb and other forms of accommodation are sharing a “pie” of visitors which is not increasing.
(Haniotika Nea, 28/06/24, 02/07/24)