Cyprus Hoteliers predict tough tourism season

Cyprus hoteliers are predicting a very tough tourism season in 2007 with Cyprus Hoteliers Association Chairman Haris Loizides saying that despite a satisfactory 5% increase in world tourism to 840 mln people in 2006, Cyprus had missed to join the global trend and witnessed a decline in arrivals. More worrisome is the very slow trend of bookings for the current season.
However, Tourism Minister Antonis Michaelides described 2006 as a “bittersweet” year for tourism in the sense that arrivals were slightly down but revenue was up.
“The situation is not a cause for panic or disappointment,” he said. “It does concern us that there has been a fall in arrivals, but the figures are higher than 2004 and 2003.”
The Minister conceded that the image presented for Cyprus tourism did show that a great deal needed to be done to facilitate recovery, but he said there had been a number of positive developments recently.
He said the advent of three new low-cost carriers to Cyprus this year was an important development. He also said the repositioning of relations with the large tour operators was an important goal, as was a new advertising campaign and a new creative approach to tourism marketing.
However, Loizides said that presentations earlier in the day by UK tour operators showed the British market was stagnating “at a disturbing level”. “Following a period of crisis, the Russian market is recovering, but it’s upsetting to see that Cyprus has slipped from number three in Russian preference to 11th position,” said Loizides.
He said hoteliers had prepared a new memo for the government, with a short-term plan for immediate action on specific measures that could be taken to aid a tourism recovery.
He said the state and local government had shown great inactivity when it came to the tourism sector. “We need to go from words and plans to deeds and actions,” he said.
Michaelides, referring to the government’s strategic plan for tourism up to 2010, said the review of the blueprint had just been completed by Irish experts.
The final readjustment of the strategic plan would be presented in a matter of weeks, he said.
Michaelides said the new proposals from the hoteliers were welcome, but didn’t appear to think they were necessary.
Michaeldies also announced that the CTO budget would not be lower than other years.
Both Loizides and Michealides did agree that two of the biggest challenges for tourism would be the introduction of the euro next year, and the airport project, and that both could contribute to the recovery of the industry.