The increase in arrivals last month was mainly on a 6% annual increase in arrivals of tourists from the UK, traditionally Cyprus’s largest source of incoming tourism to 176,880 offsetting a 3.6% drop to 129,119 in arrivals from Russia, Cyprus’s second largest market, Cystat said in a statement on its website on Thursday.

Arrivals from Israel rose in July an annual 83% last month to 42,505 almost matching the number of Israeli tourists visiting Cyprus in the entire 2015, Cystat said. Arrivals from Sweden rose 17% to 22,621 and those from Greece and Germany rose 2.6% and 70% to 15,513 and 19,759 respectively.

In the first seven months of the year, the number of tourist arrivals rose 15% to 1,994,236, Cystat said. The figure is also an all-time high for January to July.

Tourism accounts directly or indirectly roughly a quarter of Cyprus’ economy which is forecast to expand 2.9% in 2017.

In a separate statement, Cystat said that the number of Cyprus residents who travelled abroad last month rose 13% to 149,716 compared with the respective month of 2016.

Source: Cyprus Mail