Cyprus tourism arrivals down 8 per cent in first seven months

Nicosia, Cyprus. Tourism arrivals fell by about 8 per cent in the first seven months of the year, Deputy Tourism Minister Costas Koumis said on Friday. He said the year is expected to end with a decline of around 5 per cent, compared with 2024.

Summer decline eases

Koumis made the remarks during a meeting with the deputy ministry, the hoteliers’ association Pasyxe and Limassol tourism bodies.

Monthly figures showed that the decline eased during the summer, reaching around 1 per cent in June and just over 1 per cent in July. August figures are still pending.

“The total percentage for the first seven months of the year has dropped to 8 per cent and I emphasise the word dropped because it indicates that the decrease is clearly now on a downward path,” Koumis said.

Crisis response

Koumis referred to the industry’s difficulties earlier in the year following the fallout from the drone strike at RAF Akrotiri and the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.

He said the deputy ministry introduced measures after thousands of cancellations and a freeze in reservations.

“When we were getting an idea of the size of the problem and the thousands of cancellations, the freezing of reservations, we implemented a series of actions that followed,” he said.

Koumis also said other affected countries had not managed the situation as effectively as Cyprus.

Limassol hotel capacity

Limassol tourism board president Andreas Tsouloftas raised concerns over the conversion of small hotels into short-term residential units.

He said the reduction in available beds was limiting Limassol’s ability to expand beyond its current 12 per cent share of national tourism.

“It would be a good thing if there were interest or some incentives to increase these beds, instead of focusing on just attracting higher spending visitors,” Tsouloftas said.