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Why does Trade and Tourism Minister Antonis Paschalides continue to listen to the people surrounding him when all else in the tourism sector is in a freefall? Is he so gullible to believe anyone who says that tourism is doing well and we will experience a ‘mild drop’ in the number of holidaymakers in 2009?
A senior executive at TUI, by far the biggest supplier of tourists from Britain and Germany, said it bluntly – arrivals in Cyprus will be down by a quarter next year and the fault lies mainly with the high cost of air fares, airport taxes, hotel accommodation and food.
These are the problems that Cyprus-specialist travel agencies have been grumbling about for many years, decades even, with no one at the Ministry or at the CTO ever seeming concerned.
The aspiration to become a ‘quality destination’ died down years ago and (fortunately) has never been resurrected.
On the one hand we complain that a single Greek-speaking waiter cannot be found at any hotel or restaurant nowadays, yet foreign workers, mainly from poorer-income EU countries, are the only ones willing to do the work. Unions blame the hoteliers, claiming the owners are rigid when it comes to reward and pay increases.
The hoteliers, on the other hand, say the labour demands are unaffordable. They nag the government to increase incentives and reduce state levies, such as VAT and other taxes. Yet they do nothing to fix up their hotels or improve quality of service with many establishments no longer deserving their 4- and 5-star ratings.
Then there are the airlines operating to and from Cyprus that are necessary to shuttle the two and half million vacationers that we desperately need. The state-owned carriers are plagued with (once again) labour issues, while the trade unions are rigid when it comes to achieving effective cost reductions. Putting pay aside, it is the quality of service on board these airlines that puts people off from flying on board the Cypriot airlines, where the service is sometimes equal to, if not worse than that offered on board budget carriers.
It’s not enough filling hotel rooms during winter months or spending more on promoting Cyprus as a holiday destination, when experience counts and word-of-mouth can destroy a reputation.
What the Minister should do is tell unions to back off from excessive pay demands, tell the airlines to fix their in-flight equipment and cabin crew to improve their attitude, and warn hoteliers that if they do nothing to improve quality, then stars will be taken away from their ratings.
Only then can we start talking about new resorts, golf courses, marinas and casinos.
