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2022 won’t be brilliant year for tourism but it will be good, Perdios says

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Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios has said that 2022 won’t be a brilliant year for the Mediterranean island’s tourism but it will be a good one.

And that the tourism sector is starting to recover its losses from the pandemic with arrivals approaching 2019’s record levels despite fewer visitors from Russia.

Perdios who was talking to journalists on Wednesday, noted that more than half a million people had visited the island in the first four months of the year.

“That represents about 80% of arrivals in 2019, which was a record year (in terms of arrivals). That we are at 80% of 2019 arrivals gives us some courage that it won’t be the tragic year (that) many may have expected,” he also said.

“It won’t be a brilliant year, but it will be a good one,” he added.

In recent years, about 20% of Cyprus’s tourists have come from Russia, with Ukrainians accounting for about 2.4%. Both markets have been severely disrupted after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

As well as supporting traditional markets like France, Switzerland, Austria and Scandinavia, in the last three years authorities have focused on developing new markets.

“These efforts are starting to bear fruit, Perdios also said.

Just under 4 million tourists visited Cyprus in 2019, with the UK market being the island’s largest, making up a third of all arrivals.

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