Cyprus Mail 24 June 2020 - by Andrew Rosenbaum
Busy Larnaca airport is pictured before the coronavirus pandemic. The Cyprus Hotel Association is calling for the opening up of entry to a much broader range of tourists as soon as possible and they want British, Russians and Scandinavians by the end of July, if possible
The Cyprus Hotel Association is calling for the opening up of entry to a much broader range of tourists as soon as possible and they want British, Russians and Scandinavians by the end of July, if possible.
“We’ve had indications from the government that this could happen as early as July 20,” Philokypros Roussounides, the new director general of the Cyprus Hotel Association, told the Cyprus Mail on Wednesday.
“And the Tourism Ministry has done a great job in promoting our membership and the island. So demand is going to be there. But the bookings won’t come in until a date is set.”
“We need the British, the Russians and the Scandinavians and as many others as possible. We respect the need for the government to safeguard the nation’s health, but other countries, with which we compete, like Greece and Spain, have already set dates for a relaxation of such restrictions,” he points out. “So we need a date, as soon as possible. It doesn’t have to be in July, it could be in the beginning of August for example, but the date needs to be set,” he adds.
Setting the date is critical, Roussounides explains, “because the large international tour operators need to book for Cyprus in advance. These bookings need to be logged in soon so that many more guests can come later.”
Roussounides says that the number of guests in hotels at the moment is very low — a fraction of what it was in the previous year. “And about 70 per cent of bookings have been switched to later dates. While we do expect the number of new bookings to increase, unless a greater number of countries are permitted to enter the country, this will not happen fast enough.” He noted that part of promotion for the island should be for short stays, but also to bring in tourists for longer vacations booked well in advance.
Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios has said that the ministry is trying hard to open up new markets and to attract new types of tourism as well as new age groups, so that our product gets expanded. The first steps are to be taken for Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. After that, promotion will be expanded to Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium. The deputy minister has also set into motion programmes that promote Cyprus as a year-round tourism destination, and not just a beach vacation place.
For now, there is a ban on travel to Cyprus for residents of the UK and Russia, and the government has not stated when that ban would be reviewed or terminated. Residents of the following countries have been able to enter Cyprus since 9 June: Malta, Greece, Bulgaria, Norway, Austria, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Israel, Denmark, Germany, Slovenia and Lithuania.
As of Saturday June 20, nationals of the countries included in the B category were eligible to enter, when the second stage started, are as follows: Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Croatia and Estonia.
