The flow of tourists from Israel to Cyprus will resume within a month
The flow of tourists traveling from Israel to Cyprus is expected to recover to last year's level within the next month. This was stated on Wednesday by the chairman of the Association of Travel Agencies of Cyprus (Acta), Haris Papacharalambos.
Papacharalambos was assessing the upcoming high season on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Association and said that this year's tourist flow to the island is expected to be slightly lower than last year due to the situation in the Middle East. He remained optimistic about a future increase in tourist arrivals from Israel, but noted that the flow of tourists in the opposite direction may take longer to reach last year's level," the CyprusMail website writes.
Looking ahead to the upcoming Easter holidays, Acta vice chairman Christos Christou said that the number of booking spots for Cypriots wishing to travel abroad is running out.
He added that the favorite vacation destination for Cypriots for Easter is Greece, in particular, the island of Corfu, but increasingly people are preferring European destinations such as Paris.
He also touched upon the issue of summer, noting that travel packages are already available online, and people have started making reservations. With this in mind, Papacharalambos said that those who wish to travel should "make their purchases in time to avoid paying an increased cost at the last minute."
He also said that 2023 was a "record year for travel" as tourist traffic was five percent higher than the previous highest in 2019. He partly attributed this to the fact that 2023 was the first year since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic that was completely free of restrictions.
In addition, he said that overall, the favorite foreign travel destination of Cypriots is Greece, which accounts for one-third of all foreign trips made by Cypriots. In second place is the United Kingdom, which accounts for 10 to 12 percent of Cypriots' foreign tourist trips, while other European destinations are gaining in popularity.
Earlier, Travel Wise wrote that Cyprus is bringing back the Golden Visa program for wealthy foreign investors.
