In 2025, investment activity in new constructions, renovations and upgrades of hotels in Greece was approximately 2.8 billion euros, as revealed by the CEO of Enterprise Greece, Mr. Marinos Giannopoulos, during his speech at a panel on the hospitality industry on the topic “The unexpected leisure boom: Greece, Croatia, Albania”.
The panel was organized on the sidelines of the international exhibition Expo Real 2025, which was recently held in Munich. This is the largest international exhibition of the real estate sector at a European level, in which representatives of the entire value chain of the real estate market sector (retail, hotel services and logistics) participate as exhibitors, from development to implementation and financing of real estate projects.
Also participating in this particular panel were Ivana Budin Arhanic, member of the Board of Directors of Valamar Hotel Group, Croatia’s largest tourism company, Frank Reul, Vice President of Development of Accor-Eastern Europe, Greece, Italy, Malta and Julian Adili, CEO of the Albanian State Development and Real Estate (ASDRE) while the moderator was Sinisa Topalovic, head of the tourism consulting department of Horwath HTL, an international consultancy for hotels, tourism and leisure.
The speakers’ interventions focused on the presentation of the three real estate markets (Greece, Croatia, Albania with the clear superiority of the Greek one as the most mature), with emphasis on the incentives given for tourism development and sustainable investments in the sector.
Mr. Giannopoulos presented the new possibilities of the Greek real estate market and the positive prospects for the development of the real estate sector, especially hotel facilities, holiday resorts and luxury, “upscale” residences, which attract a new profile of investors to our country. At the same time, Mr. Giannopoulos underlined that Greece has followed a series of steps (investment incentives, institutional framework for strategic investments in real estate, reconstruction of old residences, infrastructure and airports), in order to achieve, in recent years, the increase on an annual basis of the quality of the offered hospitality infrastructure and to now emerge as a leading investment destination in the real estate sector, with an emphasis on sustainability, innovation and tourism development in Europe.
This year’s Expo Real welcomed over 40,000 trade visitors from around 75 countries to the seven halls of the Munich Trade Fair, reaching pre-pandemic levels for the first time, according to the organizers. In addition, 1,641 exhibitors from 32 countries (2024: 1,780 / 34) took part, while regional and municipal development agencies, start-ups and real estate service providers, mainly from the EU, the UK and the USA, had a significant presence.
Companies mainly from European countries, but also from non-EU countries such as Albania, Switzerland, UAE, HB, USA, Israel, Canada, Moldova, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Hong Kong had a notable presence at the exhibition. It is noted that Greek companies did not participate this year either, although they have consistently participated in this sectoral real estate exhibition in the past.
The information comes from the Office of Economic and Commercial Affairs in Munich.
