Seasonal reason for March fall in Cyprus tourism?

For those who thought that the 12.7% leap in tourists in February marked the beginning of a new era for Cyprus tourism, the figures for March will have been disappointing.
The number of tourists dropped by 4.7% over the year earlier to 98,964 in March 2011 compared with 103,803 in March 2010.
One possible reason is the timing of Easter, which unusually falls on the same date for both the west and the east in both 2010 and 2011.
Last year, Easter was celebrated on April 4th, so some tourists might have arrived in the last week of March. This year, Easter falls on April 24th—far too late to capture any arrivals in March but maybe late enough to have an influence on arrivals in May.
The main reason for the decline in tourist arrivals in March was the 20.1% drop in visitors from the UK, which last year accounted for 46% of all tourists, compared with a peak of 58% in 2003.
In the longer term the reduction of dependence on a single market that uses a different currency is a good thing.
More encouraging was a 12.2% increase in arrivals from Greece, despite its troubles, which reached 11,090 in March, compared with 9,886 in the same month of 2010.
Arrivals from Germany rose by 13.9%, from 15,391 in March 2010 to 17,535 in March 2011.
For the whole period January – March 2011 arrivals of tourists rose by 0.3% to 205,701 compared with 205,006 in the corresponding period of 2010.
Fiona Mullen
www.sapientaeconomics.com