Costa Navarino meets almost all its staffing needs each year, at a time when labour shortages remain one of the biggest challenges facing Greece’s hotel sector.
With the workforce at the Messinia resort reaching 2,700 employees at peak season, including staff employed by partner businesses, Costa Navarino appears to buck the wider market trend. Management says it has no significant difficulty attracting staff and filling vacancies.
The main challenge is finding people with specialist skills and retaining staff from one tourist season to the next. To that end, Costa Navarino has developed staff accommodation and introduced training programmes and additional benefits.
“We do not face difficulties finding staff at our hotels. We receive a large volume of CVs and have built a good reputation in the market, which makes it easier for us to attract new colleagues,” says Elena Gkika, Costa Navarino’s human resources director.
The business fills almost 100% of its positions each year, she says, despite the pressures facing the tourism labour market as a whole. “We need and are looking for new staff with greater know-how and specialist skills to meet the sector’s ever-growing needs,” she adds.
Investment in staff
Staffing a resort of this size also means ensuring accommodation for employees from other areas.
According to available data, Costa Navarino provides accommodation for 1,471 employees. Of these, 955 live in purpose-built staff accommodation, while 516 stay in homes it rents in the surrounding area. A new accommodation facility with capacity for 360 people was completed at Navarino Bay in 2023.
The accommodation forms part of a wider investment programme for the workforce, worth more than €20 million in total. This figure covers all related investment, not just staff accommodation.
In addition to accommodation, the business covers shared expenses, provides private insurance and offers psychological support services. During the summer months, it also runs a nursery for employees’ children.
According to Elena Gkika, pay at Costa Navarino is above the market average, with the average employment cost standing at about €2,800 per employee. This is the cost borne by the business to employ each person, not the amount employees take home.
Staff retention rates are also notable. According to management, they stand at 75% for seasonal employees, who work for about ten months of the year, compared with a market average of 40%, and at 95% for permanent staff.
The average length of service is five years, while some employees have worked at the resort since 2010. About 90% of the workforce is Greek, with employees of other nationalities numbering around 300. The average age of employees is between 35 and 40.
The need for specialist staff
To meet demand for specialist staff, Costa Navarino provides more than 85,000 hours of training each year, while more than 70% of management positions are filled internally, according to company data.
The business also works with Greek and international tourism schools, while more than 90 employees in management roles take part in tailored professional development programmes.
On inclusion, management says that 12 people with disabilities or on the autism spectrum were employed in 2026, while five deaf employees have also joined the workforce.
Food waste
Alongside staffing and training, running a large resort requires effective management of procurement and food service, with reducing food waste another factor in operating costs.
In this area, Costa Navarino works with WWF Greece and the Captain Vassilis and Carmen Constantakopoulos Foundation. The partners recently presented the “Food Waste Reduction Guide” in Kalamata, bringing together practices used in the resort’s kitchens.
The initiative is particularly relevant given Greece’s record in this area. According to Eurostat, the country ranks among the European Union’s top three for food waste per capita, with total volumes reaching about 2.16 million tonnes. Nearly 260,000 tonnes of that waste comes from food service businesses.
At the event in Kalamata, WWF Greece, with Konstantinos Tsoukalas taking part, presented findings from its WWF Hotel Kitchen programme. The findings show that about 50% of hotel food waste is generated during meal preparation, 30% on guests’ plates and 18% at buffets.
The cost of food waste ranges from €0.30 to €1.10 per cover, according to the programme’s data. WWF says measures introduced as part of the programme cut food waste by 10% to 25% within 12 weeks.
At Costa Navarino, efforts to reduce food waste include systems for recording organic waste. A pilot project using artificial intelligence has also begun at one of the staff restaurants, with the aim of better tracking the quantities thrown away.
“Tackling food waste requires a systemic approach in which everyone must play an active part,” said Vasilis Karakousis, Costa Navarino’s sustainable development director, referring to the measures being taken at the resort.
These include better production planning based on bookings, adjusting portion sizes and making use of ingredients that might otherwise be discarded. For example, surplus fruit is used to make juices and jams, while ingredients left over from meal preparation are used in stocks and sauces.
The Bar Lab initiative was also launched on a pilot basis at Navarino Dunes in 2026, using surplus fruit, vegetables and other ingredients to make syrups, garnishes and cocktail components.
Recycling and biodiversity
On waste management, Costa Navarino has set a target of recycling 70% of the waste it generates by 2030. Company data show that the rate exceeded 40% at Navarino Bay and 45% at Navarino Dunes in 2025, with waste separated into 20 different streams.
A biodiversity monitoring programme also began in 2025 across the Navarino Dunes, Navarino Bay and Navarino Hills areas. The first survey identified 114 bird species, eight mammal species, 23 reptile and amphibian species, and 263 plant species.
Work with ARCHELON to protect the loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, is also continuing. In 2025, 82 nests were recorded and 2,572 hatchlings emerged on the beach at Navarino Dunes.