What a Private Concierge Is
A private concierge is somebody you hire directly to handle the parts of a trip or a stay you do not want to arrange yourself: the house, the boat, the aircraft, the table, the staff, the occasion. The difference from a hotel concierge is who pays them. A hotel concierge works for a building and serves its guests. A private concierge works for you and does not belong to anyone else’s property. In Greece, a company doing this commercially needs the same government licence a travel agency needs.
What a private concierge does
The job is to take a rough idea and turn it into something that is booked and staffed.
Say you want a house on an island for two weeks in August, with a boat for some of it, a cook and somewhere to have a birthday dinner. A private concierge finds the house, gets the boat, hires the cook and gets you the table. Then somebody is reachable while you are there, in case any of it goes wrong.
In Greece the work usually falls into six areas:
- Houses. Private villas and estates, often with staff.
- Boats. Motor yachts, sailing boats and traditional gulets, with crew.
- Aircraft and transfers. Private jets, helicopters, and the cars and boats between them.
- Tables. Restaurants, private chefs, and dinners in places that do not normally serve dinner.
- Occasions. Weddings, birthdays and anniversaries.
- Guiding and security. Archaeologists and cultural guides, and close protection (personal bodyguards) where it is wanted.
Most firms are stronger in some of these than others. A firm that claims equal depth in all six is claiming something hard to have.
Private concierge, hotel concierge, travel agent, DMC
These four roles are often called the same thing. What separates them is who pays them and what they can reach.
| Who pays them | What they can reach | Where they are | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private concierge | You | Whatever their relationships reach | With you, or in the destination |
| Hotel concierge | The hotel | What the hotel reaches, for its guests | Inside one building |
| Travel agent | Commission from suppliers, or a fee from you | Inventory other companies own | In your country |
| DMC | The buyer: an agent, an operator or a company | Local suppliers it holds contracts with | In the country you visit |
People most often confuse the first two. A hotel concierge is very good at what a hotel can reach, but cannot help you before you arrive or after you leave. A private concierge is hired by you and does not belong to one building. That is the advantage, and it is also why quality varies so much between firms.
A DMC is a different thing again. It signs contracts with local suppliers in its own name, and it mostly sells to travel companies rather than to travellers.
The difference that matters: a network or a switchboard
This is what separates two firms that look identical on a website.
Some firms are a switchboard. A request comes in and is forwarded to whoever pays to receive it. It comes back with whatever a preferred-supplier list allows. The rooms are the rooms anyone can book. The table is the one the restaurant already keeps back for this kind of call. Nothing dishonest is happening, but you are paying somebody to make a phone call you could have made yourself.
Other firms have real relationships, held over years, with the people who own the houses, run the boats and keep the kitchens. Those relationships cannot be built quickly and are not for sale.
What that gets you is a yes where there would otherwise be a no. More usefully, it gets you somebody who knows which yes is worth having.
One question tells the two apart. Ask who they know by name in the specific place you have chosen: which people, not which companies they work with. A firm with a list answers with a company. A firm with relationships answers with a person.
What a private concierge in Greece must be licensed to do
The title is not regulated. Anybody can print “private concierge” on a website. The activity is regulated, and that is the part you can check.
In Greek law, a company selling travel services is a tourist office, governed by Law 393/1976. To trade, it must notify the Ministry of Tourism’s regional service, meet the conditions in Article 6 and hold a Special Operating Sign. That is the licence. It also has to lodge a €5,000 bank guarantee in favour of the Greek State for 5 years, or deposit the same sum as security.
So the useful question is whether a firm holds that licence, whatever it calls itself. Any firm that sells you a boat, a transfer or a package in Greece needs one.
Belonging to a trade body is separate and is not a licence. HATTA, the Hellenic Association of Travel and Tourist Agencies, was founded in 1927. It has around 1,500 member agencies employing roughly 18,000 people. Membership shows a firm trades openly. It does not replace the Special Operating Sign.
What a private concierge will not do
A firm that takes on anything does very little of it well, so it is worth knowing where the limits are.
Reputable firms decline property purchases, legal advice, tax advice, residency applications and financial matters. Those are regulated professions with their own licences. A concierge holding none of those licences has no business advising on any of them. A firm that offers to help with all of it is telling you something about its judgement.
The other common limit is budget. Many firms will not take a single-occasion brief, such as one dinner, one transfer or one night. Understanding what somebody wants costs the same whether the trip is one evening or three weeks. That is a commercial decision, not a snub, and firms differ on where they draw the line.
To compare firms, the questions worth asking are in how to choose a private concierge.
