Will the opening of a new five star hotel in the island of Mykonos in Greece be a success?

Apart from its beaches, Mykonos has an appropriate infrastructure that supports our decision to build our hotel on the particular island and it is also the reason that the island “has experienced rapid tourist development”. Restaurants situated both in the “town” of Mykonos and spread across the island offer an amazing variety of cuisines, and tourists can find almost all kinds of food, varying from Greek cousin to European tastes, from cheap to expensive and fast food  restaurants to the most luxurious and refined ones. Also, Mykonos is very famous for its night life, so the younger tourists can enjoy a night out in “town” and choose between a wide variety of bars and clubs whereas the ones that appreciate a drink next to the pool whilst enjoying the view can stay at the hotel’s pool side bar.  All these aspects of the island have made the World Travel Market (WTO) vote Mykonos as the “Best European Island for the year 2008”. () 

Our hotel will offer everything expected from a 5 star hotel including a Spa and beauty center, a fitness centre, 2 tennis courts, 1 basketball court, two outdoor and one indoor swimming pools, two restaurants providing local dishes, Mediterranean dishes and international food and 2 bars, one next to the outdoor swimming pool and one situated in one of the restaurants. The accommodation offered will be mostly private suites or apartments, some of them with small private pools and balconies and also there will be several luxurious rooms. Since Mykonos has five more 4-5 star very large hotels and are all almost every summer holiday season almost fully booked, this gives us the confidence that there is the appropriate market segment that will be willing to pay more for luxurious vacation. Our main advantage comparing to these hotels will be that our hotel will not have an enormous amount of small rooms but more suites and apartments, which will lead to a less amount of people in the hotel but the same revenue for us and a much better and more personal service to our customers.

As mentioned in the introduction an important factor of our research is examining statistical data and other external factors that may affect the tourism in Greece and in Mykonos. First of all, Italy that used to be an important competitor, has faced a ‘’downturn’’ in the tourist industry since 1987 and Greece is considered as a better value for money than Italy. Tourism in Mykonos has increased from 2005, with its airport having a rise of 14.8% on incoming tourists. Egypt, another potential competitor for Greece, seems to be less attractive for tourists and Greece appears to be a more attractive location for tourists in terms of offering great beaches and watersports, as mentioned in a Journal of Travel research. Also, based on a research conducted by the Greek government, Greece is the fourth most popular destination for British toursists. ()

 Turkey has become a main competitor for holidaymakers from northern Europe wishing to spend time abroad in a warm Mediterranean climate.  Albania’s tourist industry, another neighbor of Greece is also being developed.  Competition with other Greek Islands is also a matter to consider, since the Aegean Archipelago is the largest complex island in Europe. A possible difficulty that we might face, is that since the hotel is open only for seven months of the year, hiring efficient staff is often difficult as the lack of employment on the island during winter time has driven many potential workers to the big cities in Greece in search of full-time employment and also employing seasonal labor might be difficult and might not offer the best quality since most of them are students looking for part time jobs, and not professionals.  

Table 1: SWOT analysis of the hotel

Conclusion

The purpose of this report was to investigate if the opening of a new five star hotel in Mykonos will be a success or not. Some factors that determined this decision were analyzed and as a result the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The opening of a new hotel has many implications. In terms of the hotel’s human resource management, seasonal employment will be a matter to consider, but with the use of incentives employees may be motivated. High competition can be defeated by different marketing strategies and the use of extensive advertisement. The hotel should provide early bookings since many foreign customers plan their summer vacations ahead of time, the Public relations manager should definitely contact travel agencies to ensure that the hotel is recognized and recommended to foreign travelers and the manager should ensure excellent service in order to live up to the tourists’ expectations. The location of the hotel, the rise of tourism in Greece and especially the island of Mykonos, the facilities of the hotel and the wide variety of clubs, restaurants and beaches Mykonos offers for every taste and every age are factors that lead us to the conclusion that opening a new hotel in the island of Mykonos will be a success.

Appendix

Figure 1: Factors to consider for the opening of the new hotel in Mykonos

Bibliography

• C:\Users\xrisanthi\Desktop\edc\newsPosting.aspx.htm

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• U.S. International Pleasure Travelers Images of four Mediterranean Destinations, (1999) Journal of Travel Research, , accessed 14/3/2009.

• The revitalization of Italy as a tourist destination, (1999) ScienceDirect, , accesed 14/3/2009.

• Tourism analyses and local government : A perspective from Albania, (2000), , accesed at 14/3/2009.

• Tourism on the Greek Islands: Issues of peripherality, competitiveness and development, (1999), InterScience, , accesed at 14/3/2009.

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