150% more Russians in Cyprus

According to Cyprus Tourism Organization statistics, the end of this year’s beach season in October brought to the island 46% more Russian tourists compared to the same month last year. Over the month the total number of Russians in Cyprus reached 33 thousand opposed to last October’s 22.6 thousand.

With these volumes of inbound tourist flow Russia has been holding on the second place for months now, having left behind Germany, but given way to the Brits. During 10 months of this year Cyprus welcomed the total of 320 thousand tourists from Russia. It allowed Cyprus Tourism Organization to put our country on the list of tourist flow leaders with 50% increase. And if compared to 2009 figures the increase would be almost 130%. The most popular resorts among the Russians are Paphos, Limassol and Agia Napa.

Director General of Solvex Travel Company Ms. Irina Petrova generally agrees with Cyprus statistics: “Cyprus is one of destinations that were selling pretty well this summer, largely because of the safe environment that many other countries failed to provide. During Velvet Season in September-October some hotels were even on stop-sale” – According to Ms. Petrova, there was relatively little dumping on the destination except for a couple of “bad” dates in June, unlike Greece that was literally overwhelmed by price wars this summer.

“Cyprus was not likely to receive some of the tourist flow of “revolution” Egypt, the destinations lie in different price brackets. Most probably the island’s success has more to do with general market growth after the recession and increased volumes of air transportation” – says Mr. Dmitry Shevchenko, Director General of ICS Company. The expert reminded that the outgoing season was marked with new major players on the destination, including Pegas Touristik and its many regional programs. Besides that, Aeroflot was offering more charter and scheduled services to Larnaka.