Number of crossings to north down since last year

By Tom Cleaver

The number of people crossing from the Republic to the north via crossing points has decreased in the first seven months of 2024 compared to the same period last year.

Excluding Turkish Cypriots, just over 2.81 million crossings were made to north via Cyprus’ nine crossing points between January and July this year – a four per cent decrease from the 2.94 million crossings made in the same period in 2023.

Crossings by Greek Cypriots also saw a slight decline, falling by nearly three per cent compared to last year. A total of 1.68 million crossings were recorded this year, down from 1.73 million between January and July of the previous year.

Crossings by British citizens, excluding British Turkish Cypriots, fell by eight per cent.

In total, just shy of 150,000 British citizens crossed from the Republic to the north, down on the total of just over 163,000 from the first seven months of last year.

In contrast, the number of crossings made by British Turkish Cypriots increased, with just over 26,000 crossings recorded in the first seven months of 2024, up from 24,000 during the same period last year.

Greek citizens remained the third most frequent northward crossers, with the number of crossings made by Greeks in the first seven months of the year now just 455 lower than the number of British citizens, not including British Turkish Cypriots.

Even so, the number of crossings to the north made by Greek citizens fell by four per cent compared to the first seven months of last year.

Other nationalities saw dramatic falls in the total number of crossings made to the north, with the total number of northward crossings made by Russian citizens falling by 21 per cent and crossings by Israeli citizens dropping by 31 per cent.

However, On the other hand, some nationalities experienced an increase in their crossings to the north. Germans saw a four per cent increase, Poles a six per cent increase, and the French a seven per cent increase.

The fall in crossings to the north reflects a difficult year for the north’s tourism sector, which saw ‘tourism minister’ Fikri Ataoglu on Thursday implore Turkish holidaymakers to choose to travel to the north instead of to the Greek islands for their holidays.

Earlier in the summer, former Cyprus Turkish tourism and travel agencies’ union (Kitsab) director Mustafa Soforoglu had raised the alarm, saying the north is “suffering major losses” in its tourism sector and facing a “serious decline in the number of foreign tourists”.

Delving into reasons why, he said the costs of flights to and accommodation in the north have both increased, which, he said, “makes it difficult for tourists” to choose to travel to the north.

Additionally, he said, “there is inadequate promotion in the international arena” in terms of advertising campaigns. He said this “reduces the capacity” of the north to attract tourists.

“These figures show that while southern Cyprus is making steady progress in tourism, they reveal that the TRNC is stagnating. There is no country left with which our tourism sector can compete, and while our neighbour is increasing its income every year, we are losing,” he said.