Cyprus tourist arrivals rise for first time in almost a year

Tourism arrivals in Cyprus rose for the first time for almost a year in June.

On the basis of the results of the passengers’ survey, arrivals of tourists reached 282,465 in June 2007 compared with 280,164 in June 2006, recording an increase of 0.8%.

This was the first year-on-year increase since July 2006.

The tourism sector in 2007 has been marked by sharp differences in different markets.

On the positive side, in June an increase of 16.9% was recorded in tourist arrivals from Russia (from 21,114 in June 2006 to 24,672 in June 2007); a 35.2% increase from Sweden (from 11,785 to 15,933); and a 26.7% increase from Greece (from 9,837 to 12,466 this year).

On the negative side, a decrease of 5.4% was recorded in tourist arrivals from the biggest market, the United Kingdom (148,941 in June 2007 compared with 157,503 in June 2006). Similarly, 19.5% decrease was recorded from Germany (11,145 compared with 13,842 last year).

For the period January-June 2007 arrivals of tourists totalled 964,097 compared with 998,325 in the corresponding period of 2006, recording a decrease of 3.4%.

Fiona Mullen