Cyprus welcomes 534,040 tourists January-April 2022

Tourist arrivals in the first four months of 2022 surpassed half a million – nearly ten times the number who visited amid the tight pandemic-dictated restrictions in the same period last year, according to the latest figures issued by the statistical service on Monday.

The tourist arrival figures for April and the first four months of 2022 – show Cyprus moving closer to the boom tourist year of 2019, although Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cost the island hundreds of thousands of visitors that were otherwise expected. Russia is traditionally Cyprus’ second largest market.

The statistical service said a total number of 289,335 tourists visited Cyprus in April 2022 more than seven times the 38,226 arrivals in the same month last year.

For the period of January – April 2022, arrivals of tourists totalled 534,040 compared to 55,973 in the corresponding period of 2021, 246,556 during the period of January – April 2020, and to 686,783 arrivals during the period of January – April 2019.

The United Kingdom was the main source of visitors in April 2022, with a share of 40.1 per cent (116,074) of total arrivals, followed by Germany with 8.3 per cent (23,966), Israel with 7.7 per cent (22,402), Greece with 6.0 per cent (17,347) and Poland with 5.2 per cent (15,137).

For a percentage of 80.2 per cent of tourists, the purpose of their trip in April 2022 was holidays, for 14.6 per cent to visit friends and relatives and for 5.2 per cent business. Respectively, in April 2021, 61.7 per cent of visitors came for holidays, 21.3 per cent visited friends or relatives and 16.9 per cent visited Cyprus for business reasons.

The statistical service said tourist arrivals refers to the number of trips and not to the number of persons. This differs in the sense that one person can take more than one trip during the reference period.

The statistics were obtained from processing of the data of the electronic platform Cyprus Flight Pass as well as from the Passenger Survey, that is carried out at the points of arrival in Larnaca and Paphos airports. Additionally, data are also collected from administrative sources, such as the monthly arrivals from ports.