In January to November, the total number of tourist arrivals rose an annual 20% to 3,098,604, Cystat said in a statement on its website recently.

“For the first time ever, more than 3 million people chose @Cyprus for holidays,” the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Commerce, also in charge of the Energy and Tourism resort, Yiorgos Lakkotrypis said in a Tweet. “Regaining market share for #BeautifulCyprus”.

The 15% annual increase last month resulted mainly from a boost from arrivals from secondary markets such as Israel, Greece and Germany which rose 113%, 52% and 52% to 7,204, 14,479 and 12,908, more than offsetting a slight decrease in arrivals from Russia, Cyprus’ second largest market, Cystat said. Arrivals from Russia fell 0.6% to 17,637 while those from the UK, traditionally Cyprus’ largest tourist market rose 3.4%.

Cystat said that 68% of November visitors said that they had come to Cyprus on vacation while 16% and 15% said that they had come for business or to visit friends and relatives.

In a separate statement, the number of Cypriots who travelled abroad last month rose 26% to 93,354, Cystat said.

Source: Cyprus Mail