Dolphin has completed two luxury resorts in Greece, the Amanzoe and Nikki Beach Resort & Spa in the Peloponnese, and this year is building two more, the One&Only Kea Island and the Kilada Hills Golf Resort with an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus signature course—all for a total investment of about 750 million euros.
Upmarket brands “have a very loyal following with the wealthiest tourists of all: the Americans,” said Dimitri J. Chandris, who sits on the advisory board of Chandris Group of Hotels, which in 2018 launched the Athens Marriott Hotel on the Athens Riviera. “We’ve seen a big difference in the type of client we are attracting.”
The development of big projects on the Athens Riviera, like the former Athens airport, or Hellinikon, is expected to re-shape the coastline and attract international hotel brands. The Hellinikon project has been stalled since the site—more than two times the size of Central Park in New York—was sold to Greek infrastructure company Lamda Development in 2014. Construction is finally slated to start once the government selects a preferred bidder to operate a casino in the area.
All that new investment will boost demand for qualified staff. High-end travelers are exacting and often have last-minute requests, including for bodyguards, drivers, maids, butlers, limos, luxury cars, helicopter services and yachts to explore the Greek islands, said Apostolos Geladaris, a manager at Royal Myconian Hotel & Thalasso Spa Center, one of 10 Myconian Collection luxury hotels on the island of Mykonos.
“While the customer’s image of the hotel is determined by the doorman, the maid or the barman, the butler is the direct interface for knowing what the customer wants and making it happen immediately through a hands-on approach,” he said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.