Next two years expected to be difficult for tourism

Cyprus Deputy Tourism Minister, Savvas Perdios, has said that the next two years are expected to be difficult for tourism, noting that in order to achieve recovery in 2023 or in 2024 actions to upgrade Cyprus’ tourist product must speed up.

In statements after a meeting of the Council of Ministers Perdios noted that he briefed the Council about the course of the implementation of the 2020 National Strategy action plan.

He noted that despite the difficulties which exist due to the COVID-19 pandemic its implementation reached 75% by the end of August, and is at very high levels.

Moreover Perdios said that more emphasis is now given to digital marketing and to the social networking media in order to promote Cyprus as a tourist destination.

He also noted that during the last months great emphasis was given to particular types of tourism, such as tourism related to culture, gastronomy, cycling, sports events etc.

Perdios said that whatever cannot be achieved during this year will certainly be included in the 2021-2022 action plan, adding that deliberations are underway about the action plan and due to the pandemic certain medium-term actions will be accelerated.

Moreover, he noted that the Deputy Ministry of Tourism and tourism stakeholders have realized that it will take some years for tourism to recover and to achieve the numbers of 2019, and that maybe this will happen in 2023 or 2024.

We continue to work at full speed to bring tourism back where it was, he noted.