Cyprus outbound tourism drops 3% in 2011

**But incoming revenue rises **

Fewer people travelled abroad from Cyprus in 2011 according to the Statistical Service.
The Passengers Survey shows that 1,208,899 residents of Cyprus returned from a trip abroad in 2011 compared with 1,246,378 in 2010, thus recording a decrease of 3.0%.
Greece was particularly hard hit: for the whole of 2011 there was a decrease of 7.8% in the number of trips of residents to Greece to 395,045 compared with 428,686 in January – December 2010.
In December alone, 81,890 residents of Cyprus returned from a trip abroad, marking a fall of 8.2% compared with the 89,228 recorded in December 2010.
Again, there was a bigger fall in visits to Greece, which dropped by 13.8% to 26,204 compared with 30,410 in December 2010.
There was all a fall of 3.9% in visits to the UK to 25,657 compared with 26,712 in 2010.

Revenue up 13.2% in Jan-Nov

Meanwhile, a strong inbound tourism market last year saw revenue rise by 13.2% in January-November to EUR 1,707.7 mln (EUR 1.7 bln) compared with EUR 1,508.9 mln in the corresponding period of 2010.
In November alone revenue from tourism rose by 3.7% to EUR 64.8 mln in November 2011 compared with EUR 62.4 mn in the corresponding month of the previous year.