TOURISM: Cyprus ranks third in Med for beach hotels

Cyprus ranks third among the Mediterranean islands for the number of its beachfront hotels, trailing behind Sicily and Crete, according to hotel search engine www.travelmyth.gr .

Sicily has the most beachfront hotels of all Mediterranean islands, said the survey.

Travelers wishing to have direct access to a beach can choose from 735 hotels in Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island.

The area with most beachfront hotels is Messina with 298 hotels, followed by Ragusa with 100, Palermo with 79 hotels and Syracuse with 78.

Crete comes second with 677 hotels and beachfront accommodation, some 22.5% of all Greece's beachfront hotels are located in Crete.

Cyprus is in third place with visitors able to choose from the island’s 309 beachfront hotels followed by Mallorca which has just 8 hotels less.

The "Beachfront Hotels" category is one of 77 in which Travelmyth separates hotels.

For a hotel to be included in this category it must be facing a beach, even if there is a road between it and the beach it counts, as long there is no other building in front of it.

Another prerequisite for this classification of hotel is that the beach is accessible and suitable for swimming.