Casino gets renovated
The first phase of the renovation of the Mt Parnitha casino, costing some 23 million euros, has been completed by owners Casino Parnitha SA. Giorgos Galanakis, vice chairman of Casino Parnitha SA, a Hyatt subsidiary, told reporters yesterday that the company will spend a total of 100 million euros on renovating the casino, the adjacent hotel and the cable car up to the casino from the foot of Mt Parnitha. Galanakis added that when the company acquired the casino for the Greek State, paying 110 million euros, it had undertaken the commitment to invest 44 million euros. Casino Parnitha SA had a turnover of 50.4 million euros in the first five months of the year, up 53.2 percent on the same period last year. The State gets 32 percent of the casino’s total turnover. The number of visitors was 271,600, up 50.7 percent. During the first 10 months under its management, Casino Parnitha SA hired 730 people. The number of employees currently exceeds 1,000. The investment program includes a thorough overhaul of the cable car. The present system was built in 1971 and consists of two cabins with a capacity of 30 people each. The new cable cars will be built by Austrian company Doppelmayr, which has, to date, built about 8,000 cable cars all over the world. The new system will deploy 20 cable cars with a capacity of 25 persons each and will be able to operate even in winds of up to 120 kilometers per hour. This system alone will cost 12 million euros and is state-of-the-art; only eight such systems operate globally, Galanakis said. An underground parking area will also be constructed at the lower-level station.
