The number of rooms in operation during 2021 in both the Athens and Thessaloniki market reached a level of 79% compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. At the beginning of 2021 many hotels remained closed and slowly opened up after the announcement of the Greek Government on May 14th 2021 to open up tourism. During the last quarter of 2021 both markets operated at full capacity.

As depicted below, demand picked up as from June 2021 and peaked in both cities in September. However, optimism dampened afterwards. In November 2021 the number of Coviod-19 cases in Greece increased 132% compared to October 2021 to a record level of 196,000 cases and 2,159 deaths. After the first case of the Omicron variant was detected on the Greek island of Crete on December 2nd 2021, infections increased to 271,000 and deaths to 2,587 in December 2021.

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