Cyprus Tourism

Tourism revenue in Cyprus approaches pre-pandemic levels!

Approximately, 20% of the Republic of Cyprus GDP is generated by tour-ism-related activities. Prior to COVID-19, Cyprus had 3 years of consistently breaking records with annual visitor arrivals of 4 million tourists.

In 2020 COVID-19 travel restrictions caused a decrease on tourist arrivals by almost 90%. However, this number improved in 2021 and have so far in-dicated an extreme increase to date for 2022.

According to a report published by the Cyprus Statistical Service (Cystat), Cyprus’ tourism revenues for the period between January – November 2022 are estimated to have reached to €2.3 billion, approaching pre-pandemic lev-els.

This represents a notable improvement over the figure from 2021 for the same period, when tourism revenues amounted to €1.45 billion, as well as the pandemic-plagued 2020, when se-vere travel restrictions led to a sum of €382.9 million being generated from tourism. For the same period in 2019, which is regarded as a record year for Cypriot tourism, revenues reached to €2.62 billion.

Furthermore, 149,857 visitors arrived in November 2022. The average duration of stay of tourists in Cyprus was 9 days. And, finally, the daily expenditure for each tourist was €71.49, while the per capita expenditure per tourist was €643.38. Even though tourist arrivals have not yet reached pre-COVID-19 levels, they are steadily showing year-on-year growth.

Cyprus Tourism Industry

Cyprus as one of the most popular tourist destinations, is a fascinating island with stunning natural scenery and interesting historical sites that offers opportunities for successful invest-ments in the island’s hospitality sector. Cyprus’ Mediterranean environment, stunning land-scape, lovely beaches, countless historical and cultural sites, traditional hospitality, and vi-brant cuisine all offer a great foundation for the industry’s further growth.

In order to upgrade Cyprus tourism infrastructure, the Deputy Ministry of Tourism is re-evaluating the country’s tourism strategy to pursue new markets. Furthermore, several pro-jects have been implemented in this regard. such as Europe’s largest casino resort, and Lar-naca’s marina and port redevelopment, following the Limassol marina mixed-use develop-ment.

Cypriot tourism has received numerous awards, including listing among Global Top 100 Sus-tainable Destinations. Despite being primarily a “sun and sea” destination, Cypriot officials are aiming to diversify investment in new sectors such as medical, sports, and wellness tour-ism.

Cyprus offers several advantages in this area, including a strategic location, growing air con-nectivity, moderate Mediterranean weather, having high-standard hospitals, clinics with inter-nationally educated doctors and personnel, and near-universal use of the English language.