CYPRUS: Winter tourism picks up, Russia down 15%

Winter arrivals from November to February saw a 3.8% increase year-on-year to 230,808 from 222,257 in the year-earlier period, the Cyprus Tourism Organisation said on Wednesday.

The biggest increase in holidaymakers was from Germany and Israel, with the number of British tourists unchanged and the arrivals from Russia down 15%.
Government statistics showed that Britain remained the biggest market with 76,517 arrivals, down a marginal 0.3% from last year’s 76,763, despite an earlier confidence by CTO officials that this number would be up this winter season.
Arrivals from Germany were up 26.5%, rising from 12,666 last year to 16,019, Israel was up 61.6% from 7,806 to 12,617 and France increased from 4,064 to 6,059, up 49.1%.
Greece, too, showed an increase, despite the country’s economic troubles, with arrivals up 2.4% to 29,364 from 28,663 last winter.
The CTO said that, as expected, there was drop of tourist arrivals from Russia, down 15.7% from 26,251 to 22,142. A similar decline was recorded in the summer months as the Ukraine crisis, inflation and rouble troubles caused several travel companies to fold, with the number of Russian tourists missing by far the 2014 target of 600,000.