Filenews 19 February 2023 - by Adamos Adamou
The recession of the pandemic, the new advertising campaign of the Deputy Ministry of Tourism and the enhanced connectivity of the country with abroad not only brought several tourist arrivals in 2022, but also several internet searches for Cyprus. Searches that were even more than in the record year of 2019, when tourism recorded its best performance in terms of at least arrivals, as they had reached four million.
More specifically, last year the googling for Cyprus exceeded what existed for the country in 2019, based on the official data collected by the Deputy Ministry of Tourism from Google itself and specifically through its free tool - "Destination Insights with Google".
This figure, along with other statistics, is recorded in a detailed presentation prepared by the Deputy Ministry of Tourism on last year's performance of the country's heavy industry which, despite the large losses that occurred last year mainly due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, left all those involved satisfied.
Regarding the tourist interest in Cyprus, as reflected by Google searches (e.g. searches for flights to Cyprus and / or accommodation), it recorded an increase of about 120% compared to the corresponding percentage of 2021 and an increase of 47% compared to the numbers of 2019. The same data shows that the number of searches exceeded the level of 2019 every month, except for January 2022, which saw a decrease of 12% due to concerns about the pandemic, which were more intense at the time due to the Omicron parallax, bringing a hesitancy for travel. This hesitancy continued in February to a lesser extent, while since March the number of searches has increased significantly. For the rest of the year, searches for Cyprus were higher than in 2019.
Famagusta and Paphos
The analysis of the total searches for accommodation in tourist areas showed that the majority of searches concerned the area of free Famagusta, representing 45.9% of the total, followed by the Paphos area with 41.6%.
According to the analysis carried out by the Deputy Ministry of Tourism, compared to the searches of 2021, the difference between Famagusta and Paphos has decreased, which may be due to the Russian invasion and the restrictions that followed it, as free Famagusta has always been an important destination for Russian tourists. The next most popular searches were in Limassol and Larnaca, both representing 4.3% of the total, while rural/mountainous areas attracted 2.3% of Google searches. Finally, Nicosia collected only 1.6% of the total searches.
Preferences by country
Looking at the countries with the most accommodation searches, the UK showed that Paphos is the most sought-after destination for Britons, as 50.6% of their searches were for this province. Famagusta came second with 38.7%. Also, the Israelis showed through their searches a greater preference for Paphos with Larnaca, Famagusta and Limassol following by approaching between 8%-15% of the searches from Israel. The German market was more interested in Famagusta (63.6%) compared to Paphos (23.7%).
Paphos, however, was first in searches for Google users from Greece, the Netherlands and Belgium, followed by the Famagusta area.
In contrast, Famagusta is the first choice for users from Austria (77.1%), Sweden (86.3%), Switzerland (82.4%), Denmark (83.8%), Serbia (86.7%), Hungary (72.7%), Slovakia (88.8%) and Romania (75.9%). Users from Poland (51.2%), France (52%) and the United States (52.7%) also showed a preference for Famagusta. In all cases except the case of Serbia, Paphos is the second choice with its share ranging from 42.6% for Polish users to just 4.5% for Slovaks.
Arrivals at 3.2 million
Clearly not all searches turned into arrivals, however, visits to the island, despite the numbness caused throughout the industry due to the Russian invasion in February last year, left the industry satisfied. According to the final data of the Statistical Service, tourist arrivals amounted to 3.2 million (3.201.080) and recorded an increase of 65% compared to 2021, when arrivals barely reached 2 million due to coronavirus. (to 1.94 million). Compared to the record year of 2019, arrivals recovered more than 80% of 2019 volume, ultimately recording an overall decrease of 19.5% compared to the record year.
Based on the latest edition of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer (January 2023), Cyprus' performance in terms of arrivals compares very well with global tourism, which still records a decrease of 37.4% compared to 2019 data. Europe has recovered more of its losses as it records a decrease of 21.4% compared to 2019, while destinations in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean record an average decrease of 18.4% compared to the corresponding levels of 2019.
According to the Deputy Ministry of Tourism, on average last year's summer season (May - October) recorded an overall decrease of 20.0% compared to the corresponding period of 2019, with the rest of the months moving slightly better, at -17.9%. He says that after the easing of travel restrictions, there were obvious signs of progress throughout the year, as the year started with relatively larger declines in the first quarter, but ended noticeably better with December 2022 recording almost the same performance as the last month of 2019 (110,041 in 2022 versus 110,330 in 2019).
The deputy ministry argues that the results are noticeably satisfactory if we take into account external factors that affected the industry, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022, inflation and the general state of global economies.
It is recalled that Russia was consistently the second most important market for Cyprus, contributing more than 780,000 arrivals in 2019 (almost 20% of the total). At the same time, Ukraine was also a steadily growing power, with 95,000 in 2019, and slightly higher rates in 2021. As a direct result of the war, in 2022, these two markets contributed less than 10% of their levels in 2019, thus creating a significant gap in terms of incoming arrivals.
The EU is a lifeline, but also traditional markets
The gap caused by the war was to some extent filled by the emphasis placed on EU markets, which had been activated before the invasion through collective actions by Cyprus.
Thus, total tourist arrivals from EU countries increased from 1.05 million in 2019 to 1.30 million in 2022, an overall increase of 24.2%.
Poland (+133%), Germany (+31.0%), Austria (+57.4%), Denmark (+66.7%), France (+97.0%) and Hungary (+58.9%) showed significant increases. In fact, the deputy ministry says, the number of tourist arrivals from Poland, Austria, Denmark, France, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain and Malta in 2022 had the best performance ever, while arrivals from Germany performed their best in the last 20 years.
These developments, it added, helped the share of EU countries to increase from 26.4% in 2019 to 40.8% of all arrivals in 2022.
At the same time, Cyprus' traditional markets also showed signs of recovery last year, as arrivals from the UK reached 91.1% of those of 2019, Israel's 94.4% and those from Greece 99%. Moreover, according to the Deputy Ministry, based on 2022 data, about 81% of tourists visited Cyprus for holidays, 13% visited friends and relatives (VFR) and 6% travelled for business reasons.
In absolute numbers, compared to 2019, among the different purposes of visiting, the VFR sector recorded a relatively smaller decline (-11.2%) from 469,000 to 417,000 visitors, while holiday and business tourists recorded decreases of 20.6% (from 3.26 million to 2.59 million) and 21.4% (from 249,000 to 196,000) respectively.
