Tourism revenue up 6.8% in October

Tourists from Switzerland, the US, Norway and Austria were the biggest spenders in Cyprus, which saw its tourism revenue for October amount to €319.8 million, figures from the statistical service revealed.

The revenue marks a 6.8 per cent increase from October 2019, which is seen as the island’s record-year for tourism. The arrivals in October 2022 however were reduced by 8.2 per cent compared to the same month in 2019.

Most visitors arrived from the UK with 150,699 tourists, followed by 33,624 from Israel, 31,556 from Germany, 20,934 from Greece and 18,871 from Poland.

Tourists from the US had the longest stay, averaging 15.6 days, followed by the British with 9.9 days, Norway with 9.6 days, Germany with 8.9 days and Switzerland with 8.6 days.

The biggest spenders per day were from the Swiss, amounting to €156.28, followed by Austrians who coughed up €134. Israelis appeared to spend €118.99, Norwegians €118.9 and the Danes €113.55.

Per head, Swiss visitors spent the most, combining length of stay and daily expenditure, averaging €1,297, while US tourists averaged €1,285. Tourists from Norway spent €1,141 while those from Denmark €920.

Greek tourists spent the least with €375.96 per head and €50.81 per day. Israeli tourists had the shortest stay averaging 5.8 days while the smallest number of arrivals in October came from Lebanon, with 2,606 passengers.

Meanwhile, hoteliers in Famagusta says they are cautiously optimistic for 2023, hoping for things to be similar to 2022.

“When Russia’s invasion in Ukraine started in the beginning of the year, Famagusta was impacted a lot more than any other region in Cyprus, due to its dependency on this market,” head of the Famagusta hotels association (Pasyxe) Doros Takkas told the CNA.

“This created a large gap in the hotel industry and beyond, as we were expecting around one million tourists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.”

“Bearing in mind that eight in 10 tourists would be in Famagusta, it is easy to see that we had a huge dent in the market of about 700,000 people, which was impossible to cover.”

Many hotels were forced to stay closed because they were exclusively occupied by Russians, while many hotels hosted people from Ukraine, Takkas said.

But concerted efforts by the transport ministry, deputy tourism ministry and Pasyxe, tourists were arriving from existing markets, leading to a “satisfactory” occupancy in hotels in Famagusta.

“We are closing 2022 satisfied by the tourism, despite the fact there was a huge explosion in the costs for hotels and other businesses, a rise in prices in a number of products and services such as electricity.”

Asked what was expected for 2023, Takkas said based on what is happening at the moment “we expect the next year to be harder, maybe even tougher than 2022.”

According to Takkas, with increasing fuel costs, ticket prices are also expected to go up. They may have been less affected due to pre-existing deals airlines had but this is bound to be felt more next year.

“If we also take into account the financial situation existing in countries that we get tourists from such as Britain, we realise we enter a season where things are not going well at all.”

With the war still raging, “it could get much worse. With the economy not doing its best on a global scale, it’s hard to see something positive and look forward to a better year in tourism.

“Tomorrow things could be different. Better or worse and we’ll have to adjust to what we have before us.”