Skiathos 2026: A Data driven look at a transitional season
Data Sources and Methodology
Data was collected for the period from January 2025 through July 2026 for more than 50 hotels. This analysis leverages data from three primary sources:
- Search Engine Data: We analyzed over 1,137,120 Google search trends for Skiathos hotels, including year over year comparisons.
- Booking Engine Data: Nearly 2.5M booking requests and demand entries were analyzed, segmented by month and guest type
- Guest Reviews: Analysis of 63,766 aggregated hotel reviews focusing on quality indicators such as cleanliness, staff, and location.
Google searches for Skiathos 2025 vs 2026
Searches on Google for Skiathos hotels show a substantial decrease of -18,80% from 2025 to 2026.
What stands out the most is the steady increase in demand during 2026-04 up to 2026-06. During the same period in 2025, we saw the search demand to follow a standard distribution.
This may indicate that, even though currently the search volume is lower compared to last year. There is a high chance that 2026 will reach and might even surpass 2025 for July and August. A slight decline in the “momentum” of the demand increase is to be expected, just like we see during 2025.
This indicates that the season might be more of a “last minute” season compared to 2025.
Accommodation Demand and Request Analysis
Travelers began planning their trips primarily in February and April onwards 2026, with June being the first and only summer month to compete with 2025.
Google Searches show similar trends, Though total search volume never surpassed 2025. The search pattern and the increases and decreases in searches mimic that of accommodation demand. With June being the month with the most search volume and a slow ramp up after March.
What’s most interesting is the demand based on check-in date, rather than request date (the date travelers started making plans). The demand for 2026 is very slightly lower compared to 2025. This suggests that prospective travelers are conducting searches well in advance of the current year, rather than relying solely on last-minute planning.
Filtering for check-in dates; As we may expect, the two most prominent periods for trip planning are June and January 2026. However, the most interesting part is that there is a slow but steady ramping in demand for summer 2026 all the way from August of 2025, which is something that is very rare, especially compared to the most trending destinations.
The top players in Skiathos
Having analyzed the destination and hospitality landscape, it is worth seeing who the top players are in Skiathos.
For 2026, the top 10 hotels, according to our PRSI, were:
- Skiathos Palace Hotel
- Elivi Skiathos
- Kassandra Bay Resort, Suites & Spa
- Bourtzi Hotel
- Princess Resort, Santikos Collection
- Alkyon
- Mandraki Village Boutique Hotel
- Radisson Resort Plaza Skiathos
- La Piscine Art Hotel, Philian Hotels And Resorts
- Atrium Hotel
Skiathos Palace surpassed Elivi Skiathos in February and sustained, by a little, a stronger brand search volume. Elivi Managed to maintain the first position from August 2025 up to January 2026. Kassandra Bay Resort & Princess Resort managed to maintain a strong and consistent search volume with slight peaks during May and June. A very interesting case is Bourtzi Hotel that managed to maintain a steady search volume from January to March. In April, the search volume doubled, in May tripled and June doubled again.
All hotels had major declines in searches compared YoY. With Skiathos Palace reaching a staggering 17.9% decrease, the highest of them all. Elivi Skiathos -15.9%, Kassandra Bay Resort -14.4%. Even Bourtzi Hotel had a decrease of 8.5%.
Skiathos Palace surpassed Elivi Skiathos in February and sustained, by a little, a stronger brand search volume. Elivi Managed to maintain the first position from August 2025 up to January 2026. Kassandra Bay Resort & Princess Resort managed to maintain a strong and consistent search volume with slight peaks during May and June. A very interesting case is Bourtzi Hotel that managed to maintain a steady search volume from January to March. In April, the search volume doubled, in May tripled and June doubled again.
All hotels had major declines in searches compared YoY. With Skiathos Palace reaching a staggering 17.9% decrease, the highest of them all. Elivi Skiathos -15.9%, Kassandra Bay Resort -14.4%. Even Bourtzi Hotel had a decrease of 8.5%.
Map
Emerging Trends and Demand Insights
Data for 2026 indicate that Skiathos is pivoting away from their current audience, with performance being declining across all types of hotels. From the high luxury resorts & hotels to the private villas and apartments.
| Ranking | Source Country | Market Share (%) | Compared Period (%) | Difference (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United Kingdom | 31.4 | 34.3 | -13.3 |
| 2 | Italy | 20.2 | 16.5 | 16.2 |
| 3 | Greece | 12.2 | 13.4 | -14.1 |
| 4 | Romania | 5.3 | 4.7 | 7.9 |
| 5 | Germany | 4.6 | 4.3 | 1.3 |
| - | All Countries | 100 | 100 | -5.3 |
As mentioned previously, the top 5 markets account for more than 70% of the destination’s total demand and net negative % difference compared to last year.
The UK leads with 31% penetration, though down from 34% in 2025. The decrease in penetration is not only due to the decrease in demand from the UK, but the 16% increase from Italy with a penetration of 20% compared to 16.5% in 2025 and a 8~% increase from Romania with a 5.3% in 2026 compared to 4.6% last year.
It is also worth noting that these markets remain the stable pillars for Skiathos demand for the past 4 years. Meaning that any audience changes are mostly related to the age group, gender and/or type of guest rather than ethnicity, besides the rapid surge from Italians as we covered previously.
Overall, total worldwide demand for Skiathos fell by -5.3% compared to last year.
Who travels to Skiathos?
Skiathos, like most Greek islands, attracts a diverse audience. Dissimilar to most Greek islands, it underwent a huge change in their main audience of travelers compared to last year.
Even though the number of reservations and reviews were way lower compared to 2025
The number of solo travelers reached 40% of total travelers compared to last year which was merely 9%.
Both Groups of Friends and Families shrinked. What is even more fascinating, is that on social media & on popular forums regarding *tourism, there are many posts talking about how safe Skiathos is for women to travel solo, which is mostly a 2026 trend and not so much for 2025.
Most reviews were made from guests in Italy, surpassing the UK, even though reviews from the UK increased by a small margin (5%), reviews coming from Italy skyrocketed to almost 500% compared to 2025.
Since Italian culture is very similar to ours, Italians tend to also explore destinations beside the mainstream ones.
After analyzing more than 145 thousand reservations for 2026, across many different hotel types and all start ratings. The Italian traveler ADR (Average Daily Rate) is 380~ € with a typical length of stay of 2.6 days. Meaning the average Italian is willing to go up to 990~€ for their vacation in Greece. Which is lower compared to the most dominant markets of US 1120~€ with LOS 2 and UK (1400~€) with LOS 3.4. Indicating that Italians want to spend less than Americans & the British, but stay longer than the average American, which may lead to choosing more affordable accommodation which is easier found in Islands beside the mainstream ones.
Destination Quality Review from Guest Reviews
A new addition to our research is the Destination Quality Analysis that resulted from the analysis of nearly 50,000 real guest reviews on booking platforms.
| Category | Current |
|---|---|
| Cleanliness | 9.28 |
| Value For Money | 8.89 |
| Facilities | 8.96 |
| Free WiFi | 8.54 |
| Comfort | 9.26 |
| Location | 9.27 |
| Staff | 9.53 |
| Overall | 9.08 |
Guest reviews highlight Skiathos as a destination that continues to exceed traveler expectations across all major hospitality dimensions. For this analysis, feedback from thousands of verified guests was reviewed across leading booking platforms. The sentiment remains strongly positive, with the professionalism and politeness of the staff to be the highest rated category and the quality of the Free WiFi being the most flaky, as seen in most Greek Islands. The most important factor is that all categories changed for the better compared to 2025.
Conclusion
The 2026 season marks a transitional year for Skiathos. While demand metrics trend downward, with Google search volume off by 18.8% and total worldwide demand down 5.3% year over year, these highlight the important structural shift in who is coming to the island and when they book.
The clearest signs of the change in audience. Solo travelers jumped from 9% to 40% of total visitors, largely driven by the impression of Skiathos as a safe destination for women traveling alone in social media and travel forums. Italy jumped in demand by 16.2%, market penetration climbing to 20%, and reviews rising nearly 500%.
References
Damari. "Is Skiathos Safe? An Honest 2026 Safety Guide" Damari, August 25, 2026, https://damari-skiathos.com/en/blog/is-skiathos-safe-2026
The Mediterranean Traveller. "Skiathos – What’s Is Like for Solo Travellers?" 30th August 2019, https://www.themediterraneantraveller.com/skiathos-solo-travel-tips/
Tripadvisor. "Travelling solo" 2024, https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g189499-i809-k14674233-Travelling_solo-Skiathos_Sporades.html
Reddit. "Solo Greece Islands End September " July 2026, https://www.reddit.com/r/GreeceTravel/comments/1v1mmmp/solo_greece_islands_end_september/
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