The fuss of tourists and the sounds of their bags disappeared along the alleys of Kokaki Tourist Quarter, just below the Acropolis hill, as the tourist movement stopped completely in Athens as other European capitals with the flight ban and the closure of restaurants and archaeological sites .
This is what left a gap in the Greek economy that is recovering from a decades-old crisis, while owners of small apartments who used the platform that shares American homes "Air BNB" to rent their apartments to tourists in order to increase their income during the crisis to their suffering again.
"The reservations suddenly stopped," says Romina Tseito with distress, after she used to invest in her apartment via Airbnb since 2014.
"I am afraid that I will not have to rent it for a long time, but I may do so if the situation continues like this," she said, noting that her apartments are currently hosting a medical staff.
But Stefania Demetrola surrendered to the reality and offered her apartment for long-term rent and said, "I was relying on the revenue of this apartment, which generates about one thousand euros a month, to make up for my job loss," expressing pessimism about the summer season that the government is trying to launch on the first of July.
Patrick Tkachenko, who works as a real estate broker, said long-term rents had become a "major trend" in the real estate sector in Athens.
"The AirBNB has received a severe blow," he told AFP.
And the platform "Air B & P" announced on Tuesday that it will lay off a quarter of its employees around the world, or about 1900 people, with the paralysis that affected the tourism and travel industry due to the Corona virus.
Brian Cesky, CEO of the company, considered this crisis "the most terrifying crisis in our lives," acknowledging that the company´s revenues will be "less than half" compared to 2019.
However, there are still people who believe in the future of tourist apartments, not hotels as havens away from crowds.
In the opinion of Enrique Alcantara, president of the Association of Owners of Tourist Apartments in Barcelona "Appartor" that the decline in revenues for 2020 will reach 85 percent, but nevertheless it is expected that "tourist apartments" will easily adapt to "the coming new times and the needs of tourists, especially in terms of safety."
Also in Athens, despite a significant drop in bookings, there is still some glimmer of hope.
"Tourists will benefit from private apartments in order to feel safer compared to hotels where they will have to interact with more people," Stratos Paradis, who heads the Association of Owners in Greece and the International Federation of Realtors, told France Press.
He also expressed his belief that the tourist apartments that will stand in the short-term rental market will rise "faster than anywhere" because "Greece is considered one of the safe countries thanks to the way it dealt with the Covid-19 epidemic."
In Barcelona, ​​the calendar for renting the Sebel Campanese apartment is still empty, and the 43-year-old French lady says, "All passports have been canceled for July and August," but she is not considering removing her apartment ad on Airbnb.
Juan Keliss, a 35-year-old technician who owns an apartment in Seville, has now moved to rent it for an average term. If things go wrong, he will offer them for long-term rent as a "last resort".
In France, Airbnb expects to return reservations quickly thanks to the local market, as the French prefer domestic tourism.
Aurelian Birol, director of communications at Air BNB France, said he expected the demand for tourist apartments to rise at the last minute, with the closure closed.
A study prepared by the Spitogatos, the most famous real estate website in Greece, concluded that there will be a clear increase in the number of apartments offered for long-term rentals in mid-April, which constitutes 30% of the market in the center of Athens.
This new transformation in the real estate market will lead to its regulation, according to Bardias. "Short-term leasing has gone out of control in Athens in recent years, and the purge caused by the Covid-19 crisis is very necessary."
In Kokaki, the increasing demand for short rentals for apartments has doubled the price, causing trouble for local housing seekers.
