Cyprus tourism dives after Western Easter

Arrivals of tourists took a dive in April, falling by 4.0% year on year, after the Protest and Catholic Easter celebrated in March had pushed arrivals up by 22.4%.

On the basis of the results of the Passengers Survey, arrivals of tourists reached 183,561 in April 2005 compared to 191,251 in April 2004.

For the period January-April 2005 arrivals of tourists totalled at 452,132 compared to 435,406 in the corresponding period of 2004, recording an increase of 3.8%.

A full breakdown of arrivals by country and revenue for April are not yet available.

In the first quarter of 2005, revenue rose by 2.9% year on year, compared with a fall of 3.2% in 2004.

However, a recent pilot study commissioned by the Central Bank of Cyprus indicates that as much as CYP 62 mln in 2004 was spent by non-residents with second homes in Cyprus – figures that are not caught by the passenger survey data.