Cyprus Tourism on Rise After Recession Blow
After seeing great boosts in the tourism industry in 2007 and 2008, which elevated their GDP by 4.4% and 3.7% respectively, Cyprus saw a 10.9% dip in tourism in 2009. With the tourist industry constituting 12% of the country’s GDP, this has proved a relatively crushing blow, sparking fears as unemployment looked set to rise to 7%.
Yet this year is beginning to offer some encouragement and hope to Cyprus. Though the Icelandic Volcanic ash clouds of April decreased general Tourism Revenue by 23%, Cyprus saw their tourist income rising by 4.2% from last years figures. This pattern is steadily continuing as June saw the arrival of Tourists reach 275,280, a 5.5% increase from last year’s 260,931. Increases of 3.0% have been noted from Britain, 53.5% from Russia and 13.3% from Greece. The tourism industry has let out a slight but terse sigh of relief as hotels and villas in Cyprus are beginning to receive more bookings than last year, and that vital chunk of their economy is beginning to reassemble. Yet they know that they are not in the clear yet, and must take the opportunity to develop rather than surrendering to complacency as the old Cypriot adage goes ‘one swallow does not bring back spring’.
Speaking in an interview earlier this week, Lefkos Phylactides, the Director general of the Cyprus Tourism Organization (CTO), spoke of the need to keep ahead in a competitive industry.
“The environment of the tourism industry is as intensively competitive as ever, and the continuous improvement and renewal of the whole spectrum of Cyprus’s tourist product is, respectively, an uncompromising necessity.”Phylactides told Travel News International, remaining the eminent optimist as he proposes an “integrated, systemic approach”, to maintaining and building upon Cyprus’s tourism industry.
“Every action, even every daily operation, will be accordingly linked with a broader set of strategic initiatives and will be targeted towards the significant enrichment of our visitors’ experiences”, he says, “the further development of the tourist infrastructure and the achievement of higher quality levels in all aspects of the tourist product”.
Firstly Phylactides wishes to address Cyprus’s accessibility as an Island heavily reliant on influxes of visitors by air travel, focusing on “introduction of new flights from our target markets, the increase of flight frequency and the improvement of the relevant time schedules.” In this respect Cyprus have clear indicators of their target markets, the travel figures clearly illustrating Britain, Russia and Greece as tourism markets to develop.
As for his proposed development of the “visitors’ experience”, Cyprus has already spoken of its plans for developing its tourism industry in regards to Casinos and resorts, offering a metropolitan angle to the Mediterranean. This offers as such an alternative Cyprus, and these plans may aide Phylactides’s plans for the island as a “top-performing destination for all seasons”. While the summer attracts those with the desire for sojourning in the sun, the winter appeal is limited, developing a more urbane culture within some parts of the island may strengthen its Autumn and Winter seasons. Though it seems important not to squander one season’s appeal for favour of another.
Phylactides remains hopeful about the task ahead of him, “Being highly optimistic about the future of our tourism industry and confident that, through hard work and broad commitment, we can successfully achieve our goals, I can guarantee that CTO’s actions will be conducted within a general framework of participatory cooperation, mutual understanding and reciprocal communication with all tourism stakeholders.” He says. Yet there is clearly a lot of work to do, but the task is being approached confidently, that the desired outcome is achievable. For those that have suffered, as the vacation rental owners, Phylactides may look to offer a glimpse of redemption, yet it is sustained effort from the tourism industry on a whole that will rejuvenate Cyprus into the tourist hot spot it was a few years ago.
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