His confidence that Greece can host another third Mandarin Oriental hotel, in addition to the one that opens this year in Costa Navarino and the one that opens in 2027 in Elliniko, always in collaboration with TEMES, formulates an appeal to “Kathimerini” CEO of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, James Riley. This explains why Athens and Greece in general can become a global destination for him. tourism travelers with higher incomes and emphasizes the importance of mutually beneficial coexistence with local communities. He considers it an inevitable challenge for the country to make a choice: whether to allow all forms of tourism to develop or to strengthen certain types of tourism that will bring greater returns and income to local communities and the state.

Mandarin Oriental has decided to enter the fast growing Greek luxury tourism market. The new complex in Elliniko is planned to be one of the most emblematic in Europe and will be built on an 80-acre seaside plot with 123 rooms, while a residential complex of 17 branded luxury houses and apartments will be developed along its perimeter.

– Mandarin Oriental is a global hotel management network. Thus, the opportunities we can use are the function of finding and identifying suitable owners, investors and directions to create projects of the highest level that can achieve the appropriate prices, capacity and services. We chose Greece because it is a great holiday and tourism destination with significant potential in the high income market segment. We arrived, we worked with TEMES initially on Costa Navarino, and everything went well – it opens this summer.

Thus, this was our first step into the Greek luxury hospitality market, and thanks to this, the relationship with TEMES was further developed. That’s how we came to create another hotel in Elliniko. TEMES is a great company to work with, as is Lamda.

– I think there are quite a few of them. If you take a step back 30-40 years ago, you will find that, historically, luxury travel has been primarily geared towards business travel and urban travel. This is also the historical origin of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong. As luxury has evolved, it now means a more unique experience. And especially in the last 10 years, luxury travel has become more and more of a vacation. In their free time, people are more willing to spend money, and the pandemic has accelerated this dramatically. As luxury becomes more leisure-oriented, the focus is shifting to destinations, whether nautical or urban. And in this context, European capitals and cities, in my opinion, are in the center. They offer the best deals for this market.

The task is to find the locations. The distinguishing feature of Mandarin Oriental Athens is that it is very close to the heart of Athens as well as to the coast and will be developed from scratch. We could never build a hotel like this in London. Creating a resort close to the heart of one of the great tourist and historical cities of Europe is a great opportunity for us.

Mandarin Oriental may start construction of the third hotel in the country.

– I will be very happy if I have more projects in Greece. I want you to remember that we are a modest – rather small – hotel company, so we currently have about 36 hotels and 27 more under construction that I expect to open in the next five years. So we are small, but despite all this, I think that the heart of luxury and relaxation beats in the Mediterranean. Greece is an underrepresented region in this respect and there are other places where it would be nice to have Mandarin Oriental. And if we do, TEMES will be our partner of choice. Therefore, first of all, TEMES must have an appetite and a location.

“We’ve been working on this a lot. The initial period when a property opens is always full of problems, especially if it opens, like the Mandarin in Costa Navarino, in the middle of the season. The first year will be difficult, but I am very optimistic. Because the peculiarity of Greek destinations, you know, is that they have not yet been recognized as particularly luxurious destinations. However, TEMES did a great job in this direction in Costa Navarino.

“There is an opportunity to turn this piece of land, the Athenian Riviera, into a truly beautiful, idyllic place that will create jobs, a vibrant economy and a global destination. Visitors coming to Athens will have a much wider choice of high quality accommodation. Our project in Elliniko is being developed in an ideal location for guests to stay, relax and enjoy sights such as the marvel of the Parthenon. This will provide a momentum that will attract more people to Athens, which is a big enough city to host this type of tourism. Somehow, from the way station to the islands, it will become the main destination. You know, there are no European capitals with direct access to the coast.

Conditional development

– You are absolutely right, and the question is how to create a hotel that fits the community, but also contributes to the community. In some directions, if you attract a lot of people, it means that you change its dynamics. Now for a successful destination a frequent change of its face is inevitable, you can look at it in two ways: you can either say that we have changed the dynamics of the island of Mykonos, but this protects all nearby islands, or that it sets for example to avoid and may need to treatment. In any case, any changes must be carried out in such a way as to contribute to the happiness of the people.

But it is clearly very difficult to find a balance that will satisfy everyone. But I have to tell you that I appreciate the fact that Mykonos is a big island and there are many more things to do. Half of the island is completely unused, but for this to be possible, the right infrastructure and regulatory framework is needed. The question for Greece is whether it will allow all forms of tourism to develop, or will it strengthen certain types of tourism that will bring greater returns and income to both local communities and the state.

Hypertourism and the Bhutan Solution

– You are right, we have seen it in several parts of the world. Barcelona is a good example where the number of tourists visiting it actually turns the population against tourism because it changes the nature and dynamics of the location. And for me, this is the most important part of our work, I mean sustainability. And for me, it’s not just about sustainability – of course, protecting the environment is important, as is reducing carbon emissions – but actually the most important element of sustainability in the tourism industry is that tourism should contribute to the economy and people’s lives. who lives there.

And for tourism to be sustainable in this sense, there must be relationships between communities and host places that ensure that they share common interests and support each other. Instead, very often you have tourists, especially from cruise ships, where people arrive in large numbers, send them to some place, spend nothing, and then disappear. And that requires bold regulatory proposals, such as whether to charge ticket fees to anyone who disembarks or visits these places in order to reduce the flow of people and provide tangible returns for others.

To ultimately ensure the appropriate contribution to the country. A very good example of how this can be done right is Bhutan. If you are visiting Bhutan, you must pay $200 per day to be present as a tourist. This contributes, as they say, to the “gross national happiness” that Bhutan uses.

– I believe, and believed before the pandemic, and now I believe twice, that luxury tourism has an incredibly strong future, as long as the global geopolitical system and politics allow people to travel. However, the pandemic has clarified in the minds of people why they work and earn money. And most seem to agree that the experience of traveling through different cultures, different customs, different places, different cuisines is important to them. Which was to be expected, since for two years this opportunity was closed to everyone. And this is the main reason for the big growth that is now known in the luxury travel industry and the high prices that travelers who can afford it are now willing to pay.

More and more people are looking and saying where to do what is really important to me, I can spend so much on what I eat, do and dress every day, but really, when my time is valuable, what matters when I go on vacation, I travel, I have real experience and I think this is the deciding factor. The other element that goes along with it to make it sustainable is then to ensure that the experience contributes to and fits in with the communities in which it happens, and this is becoming more and more important.