‘Sports tourism one of the fastest growing sectors in Cyprus’

Sports tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism, the President of the Cyprus Sports Organisation (Koa) Andreas Michaelides said on Wednesday at the 3rd Sports Tourism conference on “Development, sustainability and innovation of Sports Tourism services” organised in Nicosia.

The conference was welcomed by the Deputy Tourism Minister Costas Koumis, who spoke about what needs to be done, from the state’s point of view, to promote sports tourism.

“One can understand sports tourism if one understands the value of sports and how the tourism system works. We need to improve our infrastructure through the support of the state and through foreign investments,” he said.

He added that the ministry wants to support sports tourism which is developing at a very fast pace and brings benefits to the country, while bringing as a current example of such an event the International Athletics Meeting of the KOEAS which is being held on Thursday, May 25 in Tsireio Stadium in Limassol.

Speaking after the minister, Michaelides said that Koa is determined to contribute to the further development of sports tourism, which is one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism.

“As an organisation we always encourage our federations to undertake international events and we welcome any such initiative that acts as an undisputed ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus abroad. Our island needs to host important matches and Koa supports every such initiative,” he said.

Present at the conference were also MPs and representatives of political parties, municipal workers, presidents of sports federations, sports scientists, managers of hotels and tourist offices, university professors, managers of tourism development companies, and many more agencies and professionals involved in tourism.