Cyprus August tourism confirms a terrible year

Tourism arrival figures for August have confirmed what everyone in the sector already knew, namely that 2009 was a dreadful year for the tourism sector.
On the basis of the results of the Passengers Survey, arrivals of tourists reached 291,583 in August 2009 a fall of 11.1% compared with the 328,100 recorded in August 2008.
This brought the cumulative decline in the summer months to 12.5%. The total decline for the first eight months of the year is 10.9%, reaching 1,478,712 compared with 1,660,506 in the corresponding period of 2008.
Accounting for more than 50% of tourist arrivals, the main decline in August came from the UK, with a drop of 11.5% to 157,669, from 178,257 in August 2008.
There was also a 31.9% decrease from Russia, which has recently been a strong market, to 20,660 compared with 30,342 in August 2008.
Arrivals from Sweden fell by 5.3% to 16,950 compared from 17,892.
On a positive note, an increase of 2.3% was recorded in tourist arrivals from Germany (from 10,313 in August 2008 to 10,552 in August 2009) and 15.8% increase from Norway (from 8,209 to 9,503 this year).