Tourist arrivals fall in September

Helios effect?

After a strong summer, arrivals of tourists dropped in September to 302,833, recording a fall of 0.22% compared with September 2004.

The largest fall in percentage terms was in arrivals from Greece, Cyprus’ fourth largest market, which dropped 26.6% year on year, having risen by 32.8% year on year in August and fairly strongly before that. The drop is partly the result of high arrivals from Greece in September 2004. However, the steepness of the decline does suggest that the crash of the Helios Airways aeroplane that set off from Larnaca and crashed near Athens in August could have deterred Greek tourists from travelling to Cyprus.

Large drops were also recorded in arrivals from Israel and the Gulf, although this was partly the result of high arrivals in September 2004.

Less easily explainable was the 1.6% fall in arrivals from the UK, Cyprus’ largest market, since arrivals had not grown that strongly in September 2004 either.

With a large Cypriot expatriate community the UK too could have been affected by the Helios crash, which killed everyone, mostly Cypriots, on board.