Deputy Minister for Tourism Savvas Perdios is getting ready for overseas meetings within fresh efforts to lure new tourism markets now that Russia and Ukraine are ruled out.
At the same time the Deputy Ministry is also transferring promotional funds for Russia and Ukraine to other markets as well as accelerating Cyprus’ digital advertising campaign.
The goal is for Cyprus to record a better tourism season in 2022 compared to the previous year before the loss of these two big markets because of the war, Philenews reports.
Tourism officials know the impact of the halt to airport traffic from Russia after Cyprus, along with the rest of the European Union member-states, closed its air space to Russian aircraft following the invasion of Ukraine is huge.
Russia has traditionally been Cyprus’ second tourist market following the United Kingdom. Ukraine was also a significant market for the Mediterranean island.
Perdios told Philenews that three reasons allow cautious optimism over this season’s performance. The first one is that the British market opens much earlier this year compared to the coronavirus-stricken one in 2021.
The second one is the fact that the Israeli market this year will open compared to last year when the pandemic left it absolutely absent.
And thirdly, efforts over the past three years to lure more tourists from other big markets will bear fruit. These are in reference to Germany, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Saudi Arabia and Hungary.
