5* Thessaloniki - The Final Countdown Analysis

by Victor Matsas • 05 Nov 2024

Location: Greece, Thessaloniki

The green light finally came on and the fight began. We picked a random date (October 14th) and joined Booking to do our shopping.
5* Thessaloniki - The Final Countdown Analysis
Hotel Insider's competitiveness index gives us a fairly different picture from what we had seen before the launch:

The Vanoro Hotel has lost its lead and its place now has the ONOMA HOTEL that with the "throttle" of 106 € climbed to the top from 6th place.

Vanoro's €155 and first place at the start are enough to keep it at a safe distance from the third of the group which is the The Met Hotel - Thessaloniki whose €141 boosted it from 7th to 3rd place.

A stone's throw from The Met is followed by Electra Hotels & Resorts Palace Thessaloniki which, despite losing the 2nd place, has the luxury of standing with dignity 4th at 193 €, ignoring the wedges of the rest.

The Daios Luxury Living στην 5th place (from 4th at the start) at €178, and he, along with the Electra, sells with relative ease above the weighted average of the whole group at €172 (and this is important).

In 6th place we have the No15 Ermou which surprised us somewhat: 115 € was able to raise it 8 (!) places above the 14th it was originally.

The 217 € of S Boutique Thessaloniki fell somewhat heavy and the "brake" cost it 4 places below (from 3rd place), with Capsis Hotels Bristol Boutique fighting it dynamically with 101 € jumping to 8th place (from 16th).

Speaking in terms of target groups we have three categories of players:

(a) the "lovers of the catastrophe" dominated by the NAME with No. 15 and Capsis Bristol following remotely

(b) the middle class in which Vanoro and The Met are jousted with various other participants (Mediterranean, Grand Hotel and Porto Palace) watching the battle somewhat awkwardly

and finally

(c) the "cyrillic" category where the Electra Palace stars along with Daios and S Boutique with the rest (Makedonia Palace, Monasty, Hyatt, Lazart, Excelsior) crowding behind them, but no one seems able to change the status quo.

We sought to give another dimension to the problem of positioning. Just because someone wants a place in the sun doesn't mean they can win it with a simple lowering of prices.

It may sell e.g. Andromeda 80 € per room, but look how far behind it is in the competitiveness index. Of course it's a matter of survival, but that doesn't mean you have to put it in the same bag with the NAME.

And yet, this happens very often when some ignorant people offer Revenue Management and Market Intelligence systems, make the hotelier choose 5 "competitors" and he has the impression that he became from one moment to the next the master of the game.