04/09/2019 17:00
Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios called on the Members of the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA) to develop joint tourist packages with neighbouring countries, after the conclusion of the consultations by the Government with Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt on the subject.
Speaking during the 65th Annual General Meeting of ACTA, Perdios stressed that among the targets of that new project of the Government was to attract more tourists from new markets, where there were no direct flights with Cyprus. As he said, there was an agreement at political level, that some countries would be jointly promoted in certain markets and there would be common routes. At the same time, he invited travel agents to proceed in determining the joint packages, saying that some work had already been done.
The joint tourist packages, as the Minister said, are a solution for the promotion of Cyprus tourism in distant markets such as China, Japan and the United States, but also in other markets with no direct flights such as France. He noted that some packages including Cyprus, Greece and Israel were already on sale in China.
Perdios referred to the emerging problem regarding the weakening of traditional tourist markets for Cyprus such as Russia and the UK and stressed the need to seriously consider new markets. He said that Israel, Lebanon and Egypt were important markets, and that tourists from other countries could come to Cyprus through these countries.
As for this year`s arrivals, he said that “it appears that incoming tourism will remain at the same levels as the previous year”, however he said he was not satisfied with the fact that the tourist sector has been forced to make serious discounts to achieve these numbers.
He also added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is supporting Cyprus’ “Travel Expo” and was trying to bring in more countries from the region.