In an effort to ease their path to the island, a wide-ranging meeting will take place on Thursday at the foreign ministry on the subject of visas for Chinese nationals. “Once the problem is solved, the CTO will aim to attract to Cyprus around400,000 Chinese tourists,” he said.
Speaking on the upcoming visit of President Nicos Anastasiades to China on October 15, Loizou said that during the visit the president would be accompanied by a CTO delegation to find out why efforts to attract tourists from such as huge market in previous years, were unsuccessful.

Speaking of other ways to boost tourism, the CTO boss said the casino resort due to be established in the coming years would help attract around 500,000 additional tourists. Announcing statistical results for tourism in general, Loizou said that in 2014, some 2.4 million visitors holidayed in Cyprus, revenues from amounted to €2.35 billion. Tourists were spending on average €829 per capita during their stay.

The UK remains the island’s biggest source of tourism, followed by Russia, Greece, Sweden, Germany and Israel. Loizou added that tourists prefer Paphos and Polis, followed by Famagusta, Limassol, Larnaca and Nicosia. From January to August 2015, there was an increase in tourist arrivals excluding June, while April and August recorded record numbers.

For winter 2014/215, the CTO chairman said that there was an increase of 67.7% in arrivals from Israel, 49% from Arab countries, and 22.4% from Germany.

Source: Cyprus Mail