Tourist arrivals in Cyprus may fall by 5% by year-end — Cyprus Mail
Cyprus expects the number of tourist arrivals to decline by approximately 5% by the end of the year. During the first seven months of the year, the figure had already fallen by around 8%, Deputy Minister of Tourism Kostas Koumis said at a meeting with representatives of Limassol’s hotel association and tourism organizations.
The decline slowed in summer
As Cyprus Mail reports, the decline in tourist arrivals was about 1% in June and slightly over 1% in July. Data for August were still pending at the time of the statement. Koumis emphasized that the cumulative decline for January–July had decreased to 8%, which, he said, indicates a gradual improvement in the trend.
The deputy minister linked the tourism industry’s problems at the beginning of the year to the consequences of a drone strike on the Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri and the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran. He said that a number of measures had been introduced after thousands of cancellations and the suspension of bookings. Koumis also claimed that Cyprus handled the situation better than other countries affected by these events.
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The problem of shrinking hotel capacity
Andreas Tsouloftas, president of the Limassol Tourism Board, raised the issue of converting small hotels into short-term residential accommodation. According to him, this has reduced the number of available places for tourists and limits the city’s ability to increase its share of national tourism beyond the current 12%.
Tsouloftas said that incentives are needed to increase the number of hotel beds, rather than focusing solely on attracting tourists with higher spending. Christos Tsanos, head of the Limassol branch of the Pasyxe hotel association, said the organization is stepping up marketing efforts together with the employers’ federation, the chamber of commerce and industry, and the municipality.
