Napa wedding tourism recovering, 1,000 planned this year

Wedding tourism in Ayia Napa, which has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic for the last two years, is recovering, Maria Ttofini-Tsantila, head of the wedding department of the Ayia Napa municipality, has said.

In 2019, some 900 civil weddings took place in the town, in 2020, only 100 , and in 2021 around 350, Ttofini-Tsantila told the Cyprus News Agency. “However, this year, despite cancellations by Russians and Ukrainians, we have reservations for about a thousand civil weddings,” she said.

The majority of weddings to be held in Ayia Napa this year are for couples from Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, which have replaced the small number of Russians.

Ttofini-Tsantila added that the numbers seem to be a slightly better than 2019. In response to a question about couples from Israel, Ttofini-Tsandila said that these made up only a small proportion, while there has always been a steady flow of couples from the UK.

Couples from the UK tend to arrive with a good number of guests, as a result of which that segment of wedding tourism affects all aspects of the local economy. The couple’s guests book stays in hotels and small businesses such as florists, taxis, restaurants and banqueting venues all benefit from these larger wedding parties.

Ttofini-Tsantila called the pandemic, a “disaster for the tourism sector” and expressed hope that the pandemic, as well as the war in Ukraine would end so all aspects social life could be stabilised, and 2023 would see a return to “the good times of 2019.”