Μake us preferred on Google More Greek hotel stays are booked through tour operators, travel agencies and online platforms than directly with the hotels themselves, according to a new European study.
Among 128 Greek hotels included in the European Hotel Distribution Study 2026, direct channels accounted for 40.3% of room nights in 2025. The comparable European estimate was 51.3%.
Traditional travel companies generated 29.9% of room nights in the Greek sample, while online intermediaries accounted for another 27.8%. Together, these third-party channels represented 57.7% of reported room nights.
The report, produced by HOTREC in cooperation with national hotel associations and HES-SO Valais-Wallis, describes Greece as the most reliant on intermediaries among the markets examined.
Tour Operators Hold the “Keys”
Tour operators and travel agencies generated 25.4% of the room nights reported by Greek hotels, almost matching the 27% booked through online travel agencies, or OTAs.
The figures show that Greece’s hotel market is not simply shifting from traditional travel companies to digital platforms. Both remain central to how hotels reach visitors.
Direct bookings were still the largest broad category at 40.3%, but no individual direct channel came close to the share held by either OTAs or tour operators. Telephone reservations accounted for 14.3% of room nights, while real-time bookings through hotels’ own websites represented 8.7%.
The study does not calculate what each channel costs hotels. It therefore cannot determine whether direct, OTA or tour-operator bookings are more profitable after commissions, marketing, payment processing and cancellations are taken into account.
Direct Bookings Continue to Fall in Greece
The longer-term figures show a clear shift in Greece.
Direct channels generated 54.7% of Greek hotel room nights in 2013. Their share fell to 40.3% by 2025, a decline of more than 14 percentage points.
During the same period, online intermediaries increased their share from 18.1% to 27.8%. Traditional distribution partners rose from 24.3% to 29.9%.
Greek hotels have improved their own digital sales. Real-time bookings through hotel websites increased from 6% in 2013 to 8.7% in 2025. That growth, however, was not enough to offset declines in telephone and walk-in reservations.
Booking Holdings was the dominant OTA group in Greece, accounting for 70.4% of online travel agency bookings in a separate Greek sample of 103 hotels.
But Still Lead in Europe
Across Europe, hotels continue to receive a slim majority of bookings through their own channels.
Direct bookings accounted for an estimated 51.3% of European hotel room nights in 2025. OTAs represented 29.9%, while the broader category of online intermediaries accounted for 32.3%.
The balance has nevertheless shifted over the past decade. Direct bookings fell from 57.6% in 2013 to 51.3% in 2025, while OTAs increased their share from 19.7% to 29.9%.
Small, independent hotels and properties in rural areas and small towns generally reported stronger direct business. Larger, urban and chain-affiliated hotels were more dependent on booking platforms, reflecting their greater exposure to international demand.
The OTA market is also highly concentrated. Booking Holdings accounted for 68.8% of European OTA bookings, while Expedia Group held 16.6%. Together, the two groups controlled 85.4% of the online travel agency market covered by the study.
More than half of participating hotels said OTAs had undercut their direct rates frequently or occasionally. Another 44% reported “multi-sourcing,” in which their prices or room availability were redistributed through other platforms or third parties. These figures reflect hotels’ reported experiences and were not independently audited.
The Study
The full survey drew on information from 2,713 hotels, including 1,882 individual responses from 28 countries and aggregated data from 831 chain properties.
The Greek findings are based on an unweighted survey sample rather than a complete census of the country’s hotel bookings. They nevertheless point to a distinct market structure in which hotels remain heavily dependent on both traditional tourism companies and global online platforms to reach their customers.
