Between January and June 2019 arrivals dropped to 1.63m from 1.64m in the corresponding period of 2018, a decrease of 0.9%, said Cystat.

The survey showed that tourist arrivals from Russia decreased by 5.1% in June 2019 compared with June 2018, whereas the number of tourists from Sweden decreased by 12.5%.

Arrivals from the United Kingdom remained at the same level as last year, recording a marginal increase of 0.1%. Arrivals from Israel saw a big increase of 39.7%.

The United Kingdom constituted the main source of tourism for Cyprus for June 2019, accounting for 32.5% of total arrivals, followed by Russia with 23%, Israel with 6.5% and Sweden with 4.4%.

The survey showed that 86.4% of visitors came to Cyprus in June for holidays, 9.2% to visit friends and relatives and 4.4% were on a business trip.

At the same time, residents’ trips abroad increase by 19.5% with 13,992 returning from a trip abroad in June 2019 compared with 115,450 for the corresponding month last year, an increase of 19.5%.

Cystat said that June 2019 saw an increase of 5.6% in the trips of residents to Greece (43,190 in June 2019 compared with 40,911 in June 2018) and a 26.4% increase to the UK (25,150 compared with 19,905 last year).

Source: Cyprus Mail