Despite pandemic and Ukraine, tourist arrivals five times higher than last year

Despite the ongoing pandemic and the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Cypriot tourism is recording significant gains during the 2022 tourist season, CNA reported, citing the French news agency, AFP.

The island’s tourism industry was in recovery thanks to strong demand in alternative markets after the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, the report said.

From January to June, Cyprus recorded 1.2 million visitors, almost five times more than last year.

So far the total number of visitors remains 25 per cent lower than in the same period of 2019, when 1.63 million tourists visited Cyprus in the first eight months.

“We have somewhat limited the damage,” Christos Angelides, head of the Cyprus Association of Hotel Managers, told AFP, according to CNA. .

In the first half of this year, British tourists made up almost two-fifths of visitors, followed by Israelis, who made up 7 per cent of arrivals, followed by Poland, Germany and Greece.

“Many efforts have been made by various sectors to encourage tourists from other markets, such as the German, Polish, Italian and French markets,” Haris Papacharalambous, representative of the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA) told AFP.

It also refers to the challenges being faced by the industry.

According to the report, the tourism sector, “which had contributed 2.68 billion euros in 2019, i.e. 15 per cent of GDP, is still counting the cost of the disastrous years of travel chaos” caused by the pandemic.

The Russian market “disappeared overnight,” said Angelides, who added that “nobody was prepared for this massive change.”

In 2019, before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, one fifth of tourists were Russian (782,000 out of 3.9 million) making the Russian market the island’s second largest after Britain.

Last year, despite severe Covid travel restrictions, that figure rose to over 25 per cent, with arrivals from Russia accounting for almost 520,000 of the 1.93 million.

However, the war in Ukraine resulted in the loss of the Russian market.

“This year, we expected 800,000 Russian tourists,” said Haris Loizides, head of the Cyprus Hotels Association.

At the same time, the spike in global fuel costs caused by the conflict in Ukraine has driven electricity prices higher.

With tourists using air conditioning to beat the heat, hotels were struggling with “astronomical bills”, Loizides said.

“The EU must address this problem and help businesses, especially at a time when inflation is raging.”