Tourist arrivals this year will be slightly lower than in the previous year, according to Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios who on Wednesday presented a ten-year plan to upgradeĀ Cyprus’ tourism product to cabinet.
He also presented the new organisational structure of the Deputy Ministry until 2020, when a study for its needs on human resources is expected to be completed.
Cyprus tourism arrivals ion 2018 hit a record 3.93 million.
The aim of the new structure, as Perdios said was “to be able to operate as efficiently as possible by taking advantage of all the economic and human resources of our team, but without placing more burden on the finances of the Deputy Ministry and the State”.
The Deputy Minister said that he had put forward to the Cabinet a proposal by the Deputy Ministry for a ten-year plan for tourism actions. This plan concerns both intangible actions and longer-term actions, as he explained.
The action plan, covers initially a short-time period until 2022 where intangible actions such as branding and marketing will be implemented. The next action period is from 2023 to 2025, followed by a long-term period from 2026 to 2030.
Regarding the arrivals of tourists in Cyprus, Perdios said that they would be slightly lower than last year, although the number of flights increased, noting that there were 50,000 more airline seats than last year.
Referring to the reasons for the reduction, the Deputy Minister cited, among others, to the fall of the Russian ruble, Brexit and the problems of the German market.
At the same time, he noted that Cyprus is trying to enter new markets in the Middle East, such as Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.
(Cyprus News Agency)
