CYPRUS: Russian tourists help push arrivals up to record level for September

Cyprus tourist arrivals, boosted by Russian and Israeli holidaymakers, hit a new record high for September with 524,707 visitors, improving 0.9% on the previous year.

It was the highest volume of tourist arrivals ever recorded in Cyprus for that month, despite the collapse of Thomas Cook, official data shows.

For the first nine months to September arrivals were marginally up 0.6% to 3.26 million from 3.23 million in the same period of 2018.

This was also a record figure for Cyprus for the first nine months of the year.

In September tourist arrivals from Russia increased by 2.9% year-on-year and a 12% hike was recorded from Israel.

Tourist arrivals from Sweden remained at the same level as last year, although there was a decrease of 2.9% from the island’s biggest market Britain while a 25.7% dip was recorded from Germany.

The UK constituted the main source of tourism for Cyprus in September with a total share of 32.3% followed by arrivals from Russia with 22.8% of total arrivals, from Israel 6.9% and from Sweden 4.1%.