Greek hotels and tourism businesses: collecting from foreign tour operators and booking platforms

A 90-room hotel on Rhodes sells half its rooms through a British tour operator, a third through a German one and the rest through booking platforms and direct bookings. From May to October money arrives from all three, in pounds and euros, on different schedules. From November to April almost nothing arrives, and the bank loan, insurance and renovation bills keep coming.

Who pays, and how

Tour operators pay under contract. A typical allotment agreement pays monthly in arrears, sometimes with a pre-season advance. UK operators often contract in pounds, German ones in euros.

Booking platforms work in one of two ways. With pay-at-hotel, the guest pays the hotel at check-in or check-out. With platform-collected payments, the platform charges the guest and pays the hotel after the stay, minus commission, often by bank transfer or virtual card.

Direct bookings come through the hotel's own booking engine and card terminal.

The sterling problem

A British operator paying £180,000 into a Greek euro account sends an international transfer. The Greek bank converts it on arrival at its own rate. On a season's worth of payments, the margin adds up to a meaningful sum, and the hotel has no say over the day it converts.

A sterling balance changes that. The payment arrives as pounds. The hotel converts when it needs euros, at a rate it sees before confirming, or pays UK costs in pounds directly: a UK sales agent, marketing or a travel fair stand.

Reconciling three payer types

Monthly operator statements, platform payout reports and card settlements rarely match the hotel's own booking records line by line. A clear routine helps:

1. Match each operator payment to its statement, by month and booking reference.
2. Match platform payouts to the bookings they cover, net of commission.
3. Chase differences while the season is still running, not in January.

Plan the off-season in July

The cash for winter comes from summer. A simple rule many seasonal businesses use: move a fixed share of each month's receipts to a reserve as soon as they arrive, sized to cover November to April fixed costs. Holding the reserve partly in pounds, if you have pound costs, adds flexibility.

Paying into Greece: the local rail

Source: European Payments Council: SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. Checked when this guide was last updated; the scheme's own page has the current figures.

Where Rivet fits

A Rivet business account on the Growth plan gives a Greek company sterling details, so UK tour operators pay by Faster Payments, and euro details with an IBAN, both in its own name, plus US dollar details on every plan for American partners. Balances can be held, converted at a rate shown before you confirm, or used to pay suppliers in 120+ countries. Rivet is not a bank; regulated partner institutions hold the funds.