The number of crossings to the north made by Greek Cypriots fell by 15 per cent in the final three months of last year, compared to the same period in 2023, according to statistics released by the north’s central bank on Wednesday.

Just 638,351 crossings were made by Greek Cypriots in the final three months of last year – down on the 751,324 crossings made by Greek Cypriots during the last three months of the year before.

The number of Greek Cypriots crossing fell by eight per cent over the entire 12 months of 2024, with 2,836,884 crossings made by Greek Cypriots last year compared to 3,063,408 the year before.

The decline compared to 2023 had been just 4.5 per cent in the first nine months of the year, but the drastic decline in crossings recorded in the year’s final quarter saw the annual rate of decline almost double.

When all non-Turkish Cypriots are accounted for, crossings made to the north at Cyprus’ nine crossing points fell by 7.2 per cent in 2024 compared to the year before.

Exactly 4,831,724 crossings to the north were made last year, down almost 300,000 from the 5,211,977 who crossed to the north in 2023.

In the other direction, the number of crossings made to the Republic by Turkish Cypriots in 2024 was 2,966,559, dwarfing both the number of Greek Cypriots crossing in the opposite direction and the number of crossings made by Turkish Cypriots the previous year.

Last year’s figure was almost 18 per cent higher than the previous year’s figure of 2,516,814, while the figure of 804,361 in the last three months of the year is the highest number of crossings made by Turkish Cypriots over any three-month period since the crossing points first opened in 2003.

That figure was 24.5 per cent higher than the number of crossings made by Turkish Cypriots in the final three months of 2023.

The bank also published statistics regarding the number of people staying overnight in hotels and other accommodation in the north, revealing a sharp turn in the north’s tourism demographics towards the Turkish market.

The number of Turkish tourists staying overnight in the north rose by almost 19 per cent last year, from 867,994 to 1,030,519, while the number of non-Turkish tourists staying overnight fell by 13.5 per cent from 309,115 to 267,249.

In terms of nights stayed, the picture was similar, with the number of nights stayed by Turkish tourists in the north rising by 15 per cent from 2,536,802 to 2,927,908 and the number of non-Turkish tourists falling by 15.6 per cent from 1,442,569 to 1,217,840.

A decline in the number of international tourists travelling to the north was also identified by former Cyprus Turkish tourism and travel agencies’ union (Kitsab) director Mustafa Soforoglu, who drew attention to the declining number of international tourists arriving to the north via air and sea last year.

He told the Cyprus Mail that aside from Turkish Cypriots and Turkish nationals, just 343,702 people arrived in the north via air or sea last year.

The second-largest country cohort of overseas nationals arriving at the north’s airport and ports were Russian nationals, of whom 47,906 made the journey, while 37,688 German nationals also arrived in the north.

Iranian nationals were the fourth largest cohort, with 36,232, while just 21,399 British nationals arrived in the north by air or sea in 2024. Over 1.3 million British nationals arrived in the Republic by air or sea over the same period.

This discrepancy is even larger when compared with figures Soforoglu had compiled for the first half of last year, when 14,237 British nationals had arrived in the north by air and sea and just over 500,000 had arrived in the Republic by the same means.

In short, therefore, while more British nationals continued to arrive in the Republic in the second half of last year, only 7,162 British nationals arrived in the north by air and sea in the second half of 2024.