Greek tourism industry faces the risk of falling into a disinvestment orbit unless the state offered tax incentives, Iason Perdios, chief executive of Louis Hotels told AMNA. In an interview, Perdios noted that high taxation combined with high social insurance contributions and constant changes in tax legislation were the basic factors of discouraging would-be investors to build new hotels in the country, creating new job positions. Perdios, CEO in one of the largest hotel groups in Cyprus and Greece, operating 21 hotels (12 in Cyprus and 9 in Greece), said that when a businessman decided to make an investment based on bank borrowing, he drafts a 15-year sustainability plan, but with constant changes on tax legislation this plan is annulled.
Perdios said that Greece has the global originality of imposing taxes on national products, such as wine and ouzo. “You buy ouzo at 2.65 euros per two litres from the supplier and you pay 12.35 euros, of which 9.70 euros goes to state coffers as tax. You punish your country in multiple ways. First, the producer, secondly the consumer and third your own country that goes out of competition,” he said.
He said that labour cost in Greece was very high as social insurance cost reached 41% when in Cyprus it was 19%. “All these are incentives for undeclared labour. In Greece, unfortunately, only large enterprises and group of companies pay the bill at a huge cost for their businesses which deprived them of the ability to move forward with larger investments,” he noted.