Cyprus tourism revenue up 20.2% y/y in April

Sustained outperformance of arrivals

Revenue from tourism rose by 20.2% compared with the same month of 2005 in April, compared with a rise of 12.5% in arrivals, which was helped partly by the timing of Western Easter.

The fact that revenue rose faster than arrivals is significant, as April marked the six consecutive month in which revenue performance outstripped that of arrivals.

In every month between November 2005 and April 2006, revenue either did not fall as much as arrivals, or rose when arrivals fell, or rose faster than the rate of increase of arrivals.

Thus, for the first four months of 2006, total revenue increased by 2.6% year on year, while total arrivals fell by 3.9%.

A year-on-year fall in the number of arrivals is of course not great news, but at least the revenue is picking up.

Revenue figures going back to 2002 show that revenue has under-performed arrivals growth for several years.

The government’s long-term strategy is to raise the quality of the tourism product and thus to maintain the trend of improving revenue.

Fiona Mullen