Already coming off a big tourist summer season, Cypriot officials are expecting the trend to continue into the fall and winter and another 250,000 airline seats are being added to the schedule.
That means a 20 percent boost in arrivals between November this year and March of 2018 coming on the heels of an estimated 3.6 million visitors arriving by the end of 2017, the Cyprus Mail reported.
Winter tourism in the past has not fared well because there were not enough airline arrivals or seats, official said, hoping adding additional capacity will keep bringing more people in the off-season.
“Everything depends on the supply of available airlines and hotels,” Avgi Papageorgiou, head of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) marketing department told the paper.. “This is the chicken and egg problem,” she added.
Senior Marketing Manager for Hermes Airports Maria Kourpouri said progress was relative “to what we have the rest of the year”. Kourpouri said winter tourism always hovered around 20 per cent of total arrivals. “We want to see it grow yearly to 25-30 per cent of the total,” she told the paper.
“We have made some progress but there is still a big difference but more and more hotels Cyprus Hotels Association Director General Zacharias Ioannides said the 250,000 extra seats, running at 70-80 per cent capacity per flight should result in an extra 100,000 visitors or so, or a 20 percent increase.
“In the last three years we’ve seen growth from 350,000 to almost 500,000 last year,” he said, adding that “gradually we’re seeing more hotels staying open”.
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Source: thenationalherald.com
