Stricter coronavirus measures at the Mediterranean island’s airports aiming to curb the Omicron variant spread might be temporary but none the less quite negative for tourism.
This is what Deputy Minister for Tourism Savvas Perdios told Philenews on Tuesday, adding that a number of cancellations did take place since December 6 when the new measures came in effect.
That is, all travelers arriving via air have to take a PCR test on arrival at the airport regardless of vaccination or recovery status at their own expense – which is €15 each.
Additional measures apply for travelers from the United Kingdom as of last Saturday.
The Minister did not want to focus on the British market alone, saying that any decision taken that make it difficult to move around are obvious that they lead to cancellations.
“We may think that it does not have tourism now I the winter so stricter measures don’t affect it much but it’s not like that,” he said.
“And we now need to convince our partners abroad that these measures are – indeed – temporary and that we know how to proceed into 2022,” he added.
