Three million tourists enjoyed Cyprus getaway

Nearly three million tourists took a Cyprus holiday during the first 10 months of the year, with October arrivals close to pre-COVID figures.

For the 10 months to October, tourist arrivals reached 2,941,182. During the same period last year, it was 1,691,030, while 612,975 tourists arrived in 2020 during the height of COVID travel restrictions.

This year’s arrivals are edging closer (80%) to the 2019 record when 3,697,055 tourists arrived in the same period.

As for October this year, tourist arrivals totalled 400,628 compared to 391,638 in October 2021, an increase of 2.3%, according to the data.

Compared to October 2019 alone, when 436,500 tourists arrived on the island, there is a decrease of 8.2%.

UK tourists once again made up the lion’s share of arrivals, as in October, 150,699 (37.6%) Britons chose the Mediterranean island for a getaway.

Tourists from Israel were 8.4% of arrivals, 7.9% were from Germany, 5.2% came from Greece and 4.7% from Poland.

In pre-coronavirus 2019 a record 3.97 million arrivals spent €2.68 bln.

The UK market was the driving force behind the record year, with British travellers over a third of all arrivals.

Earlier this week, Cyprus hotels reported receiving encouraging signs from UK travel agents for 2023.

After participating at the London World Travel Market, one of the largest tourist expos in the world, tourism stakeholders returned enthusiastic over next year’s prospects.

Indications are that reservations will spike in January, as hoteliers have reportedly received a similar number of reservations as they did in the months leading up to 2019.