Cyprus sets new tourist record in July

Cyprus has set a new record for tourist arrivals both for July and overall for the seven months since the start of the year.

According to the Passenger Survey of the Statistical Service, the number of visitors in July totalled 539,626 — a 1.6% increase over the same month the previous year and the highest number ever recorded for the month of July.

For the first seven months of 2018, the number of visitors jumped 9.6% to total 2.184 million compared to 1.994 million in the same period in 2017.  This too was a new record.

The survey showed a 15% annual increase in arrivals from Sweden in July and a 15.9% annual increase from Lebanon.

But the number of tourist arrivals from the UK edged down by 1.1%, while Russian arrivals were down 5.9%.  Arrivals from Israel slumped 22.2% while the number of visitors from Germany was down 14.5% .

The UK remained Cyprus’ biggest market in July accounting for 32.4% of total visitors, followed by Russia with 22.5%, Israel with 6.1% and Sweden with 4.8%.

For the first seven months of the year, visitors from the UK were up an annual 6.9% to 735,744 while arrivals from Russia were down 5% to 438,829.

According to the passenger survey, 87.7% of visitors in July were on holiday, 9.8%  visited friends and family and 2.5% were business travellers.