Cyprus eyes more than 2 mln arrivals
Cyprus aims to attract more than 2 million tourist arrivals this year, according to Deputy Minister for Tourism Savvas Perdios.
Speaking after a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee for Commerce, Perdios said that after the loss of an estimated 800,000 tourists from Russia and Ukraine, arrivals in 2022 could not reach the record 4 million of 2019, but may well exceed last year’s 2 million arrivals.
“Demand for Cyprus is high and we continue to believe that we will achieve our target for a better season compared with last year’s,” he added.
The deputy minister pointed out that his optimism is based on the satisfactory results of the first four months of 2022, with arrivals amounting to 70-75% of the tourist arrivals welcomed in 2019. He said: “These numbers are a significant boost for us because in this period we were at the height of the Omicron Covid variant, imposing strict entry protocols and requiring double negative Covid tests even for vaccinated travelers. But we also have had the war in Ukraine which has affected many people.”
Perdios also pointed out the increase in internet searches for Cyprus, which came to more than those in 2019.
