2026 is the record year for the number of visitors to the communities of Akamas. The high traffic recorded this year in all the communities of the peninsula is not sporadic and based exclusively on the days of the cultural festivals of the fifteenth of August in each community, but for the first time massive and continuous flow throughout the summer quarter, local officials emphasize.
This situation, they say, has substantially modified the decades-old pattern according to which for the vast majority of visitors Akamas was intertwined with the beaches, gorges, special hiking areas and ecological actions in the protected areas. Now more and more visitors, Cypriots and foreigners, are discovering its beautiful villages, in many of which there are also commercial activities for the provision of catering services that were completely absent until recently.
A turning point for this differentiation, according to the community bodies, was the special plan announced in 2024 by President Christodoulidis. The plan is now well in place and the signs are more than encouraging, with organized groups of tourists visiting the communities of the peninsula, in addition to the natural environment.
It is characteristic, they emphasize, that four museum spaces that have been created and operated in recent years in an equal number of villages on the peninsula, have been jointly awarded internationally, with the result that their traffic will skyrocket within 2026 to a very large extent.
Speaking to "F", the Deputy Mayor of Akamas of the Ineia district, Yiangos Tsivikos, stressed that the President of the Republic, inaugurating in Ineia the Aphrodite thematic route, the Turtle Museum and the regeneration of the core of the community, in February 2024, had assured that incentives would be given so that all these projects carried out in the communities of Akamas would attract visitors.
President Christodoulides' commitment to develop and implement this plan is being implemented, since organized visits, but also individual excursions to the communities are a fact, said Mr. Tsivikos.
As the President of the Republic stressed when announcing the implementation of this plan, this does not constitute preferential treatment of the communities of the peninsula, since everyone recognizes that all these years the residents of the villages of Akamas cannot use their properties, as the people of all other areas of Cyprus can do. The importance of Akamas goes beyond the narrow boundaries of the region and gives our efforts a national scope, Nikos Christodoulidis had characteristically said.
Regarding the projects he inaugurated at the time, President Christodoulidis stressed that these are projects that create significant development potential for the people of the region. Everyone should realize, he said, that the inhabitants of the villages are the ones who are most interested in Akamas and the environment, because it is this environment that proves the uniqueness of their area and the advantages it gives them.
