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National tourism strategy approved by the Council of Ministers

20/02/2019 16:38

The fundamental guidelines that should govern the final form of the national tourism strategy until 2030 were approved by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. At the same time, the Deputy Ministry of Tourism is examining new forms of tourism as well as looking into new markets in an effort to tackle the seasonality issue.

Speaking to reporters after the Council of Ministers’ meeting, Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios said that the business guidelines of the national tourism strategy have been decided after rigorous consultations at the ministry in the past weeks with tourism stakeholders.

He went on to say that the Deputy Ministry went ahead with an analysis of the European demographic needs and has studied the purchasing power of various nationalities which Cyprus is interested in. He further said that they studied several forms of tourism which might help tackle the seasonality issue.

"We think it is self-evident that our targeting will be to attract these special forms of tourism based on Europe`s demographic data”, he added.

Asked if Cyprus will make a move to specific countries, Perdios said more emphasis should be placed on specific countries that may have not been included in the plan in the past. He further said that the details of the business guidelines will be presented before the annual hoteliers’ association conference on 26th February.

Invited to clarify what he means by special forms of tourism, Perdios said it involves the mountainous and rural areas, noting that health tourism, rehabilitation and people with disabilities, in itself, requires a specific strategy, adding that the value of these special interests’ tourism on a global level amounts to $ 4.3 trillion. "We are talking about a huge market, there are very serious prospects for attracting such tourism and we have to look at it more extensively," he added.

Asked if there are any indications that Cyprus will be affected by Brexit in the summer, he said that besides this issue, there is also the issue of the Russian currency, the general instability in the region geopolitically, even the German market faces its own difficulties. "It is more general, not just Brexit. We will be able to say more after the March fairs in Berlin and Moscow”, he concluded.