It is not every day that a hotel group turns fifty, and it is not every day that Fortezza Fortress fills with music meant less for tourists and more for the people who built the dream. On Monday, September 22, 2025, Grecotel says ευχαριστώ — thank you — to its employees, partners, and the island of Crete with a musical celebration in Rethymno’s most iconic setting.
The Daskalantonakis family, who started with one hotel in Rethymno back in 1975, returns to the very soil where it all began. The message is clear: this anniversary is not just about hotels and resorts, it is about the people who kept them alive.
The evening is framed as both an ode and a family reunion. The company’s “family” is wide: current staff, retirees, executives who grew with the brand, and those who stayed long enough to see it flourish into Greece’s largest hotel group. The guest list, however, is not written in gold letters but in calluses, uniforms, and quiet decades of work.
Music fills the program, with Cretan legend Vasilis Skoulas and internationally beloved composer Evanthia Reboutsika at the center. They are joined by the Omilos Vrakoforon Kritis (the Brotherhood of Cretan Breeches) and a lineup of Cretan musicians, under the direction of Zacharis Spyridakis. In short: no pop gloss, just island soul.
Numbers Behind the Celebration
The story of Grecotel is, in many ways, the story of Greek tourism itself.
- Founded: 1975, with the first hotel in Rethymno.
- Current portfolio: 40 hotels and resorts across Greece.
- Employees: 7,500 nationwide, including 2,300 in Crete.
- Status: Greece’s largest private employer in the tourism sector.
For all the marble lobbies and infinity pools, the numbers always return to people. Grecotel insists that the anniversary belongs to the staff who turned hospitality into a living tradition.
A Fortress Becomes a Living Room
Fortezza has hosted countless concerts and festivals, but this evening it becomes something else: the company’s living room. The 16th-century walls will echo not only with music but with decades of stories — chambermaids who became supervisors, chefs who taught generations, managers who started as receptionists.
By choosing Fortezza, Grecotel places its story not in a ballroom but in history itself, where stone and sea carry as much memory as the people it honors.
Why Crete? Why Here?
The answer is simple. Crete is where Grecotel was born, and Crete is where it remains anchored. Even with 40 properties scattered across Greece, Rethymno is still the heart. The anniversary is not a press release in Athens or a champagne toast in Mykonos. It is a Cretan gathering, with raki likely passed under the tables, and with songs that locals actually know.
This is Grecotel reminding its audience that luxury brands do not have to float above the ground. They can plant roots, and those roots can be as stubborn and deep as olive trees.
Fifty Years, Countless Futures
The night will inevitably end, but the message will last: hospitality is not marble or chandeliers, it is people. For fifty years, Grecotel’s people have stood at reception desks, cleaned rooms, welcomed guests, and kept the rhythm of Greek tourism alive.
The anniversary honors them, while hinting at a next chapter. There will be more hotels, more resorts, more grand openings. But on September 22, under the stone shadows of Fortezza, the spotlight is on the people who made it possible.
