Hospitality enjoys recovery, fears harsh winter

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Hospitality venue owners say their businesses performed close to pre-COVID 2019 levels over the summer months, but cost-0f-living-crunch looms.

Despite pushing up their prices by an average of 15% due to the increase in the cost of raw materials and energy, hospitality venues saw occupancy rates during the summer exceed 85%, while September is also expected to do well.

In comments to news site Stockwatch, the head of the Cyprus Federation of Leisure Enterprises (OSIKA), Neophytos Thrasyvoulou, said that establishments in Paphos and Famagusta are satisfied with their turnover.

“Hospitality and leisure venues in Paphos and Famagusta during the summer months saw increased traffic mainly from tourists.

“We expect to see the same numbers until the middle of November when the season usually comes to a close,” said Thrasyvoulou.

On the other hand, Limassol venue owners were not so pleased, as they believed All-Inclusive packages offered by local hotels kept tourists from visiting their establishments.

The Limassol representative of hospitality venue owners, Kypros Kyprianou, said: “Our turnover was exclusively dependent on the tourist who booked their holidays through platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com”.

He said that local businesses were given a boost by tourists arriving on cruise ships.

Traffic at venues in the capital was satisfactory, but owners reported that their profit was not proportional to the work involved.

Leisure venue owners representative Christos Avraam said that businesses in Nicosia had to keep prices low as their customers are mainly locals.

Local businesses fear they are heading for a tough winter as customer flows drop.

“We expect a difficult winter, keeping our fingers crossed that the cost of raw materials and electricity will decrease.

“Otherwise, many venues will be going out of business this winter,” said Avraam.