Cyprus tourism rebounds in July

Arrivals of tourists to Cyprus rebounded in the key summer month of July, rising by 3.2% compared with the same month of 2006 to 354,423 tourists.

This was welcome news for the struggling tourism sector, which saw arrivals fall for ten months in a row to May and climb by only 0.8% in June.

Arrivals for the period January-July remained 1.7% lower than last year, however, at 1,316,518, compared with 1,339,765 in Jan-July 2006.

Moreover, arrivals from Cyprus’s top two markets, the UK and Germany, was still down in July by 4.6% for the UK and 2% for Germany.

The main growth in 2007 has been in arrivals from Sweden, up 22.5% in July and nearly 29% so far this year, and from Russia, up 23.1% in July and 20% in the first seven months.

The smaller Gulf market has also been booming, up 41% in Jan-July.

 

Fiona Mullen