Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean, is a year-round island appealing to a wide range of personal tastes and lifestyles, from families and couples to the most discerning of culture and nature-oriented travelers.
The Deputy Ministry of Tourism in Cyprus is celebrating a record-breaking year for tourism with global visitors up 7.8 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. From January to December 2018, Cyprus’ global tourist arrivals reached 3,938,625; of these, there were 1,327,805 UK arrivals; a 5.9 percent increase on 2017 (1,253,839).
The UK and Russia constitute the main sources of tourism for Cyprus, with visitor proportions at 33.7 percent and 19.9 percent respectively, while arrivals from Greece comprise 4.7 percent and Israel 5.9 percent of total arrivals in 2018.
July was 2018’s biggest month with 539,626 global arrivals and August coming in a close second with 534,847 visitors to the island. Of July’s visitors, 175,904 were from the UK.
In December 2018, arrivals of tourists reached 106,563 compared to 98,924 in December 2017, recording an increase of 7.7 percent. Tourist arrivals from the United Kingdom increased by 13.6 percent in December 2018 compared to December 2017 while an increase of 13.5 percent was also recorded for tourists from Greece.
For 51.1 percent of tourists, the purpose of their trip in December 2018 was a holiday, whilst 36.9 percent visited friends and relatives and for 11.9% of visitors their trip was business related.
Mr. Christos Moustras from the Deputy Ministry of Tourism in Cyprus said: “We’re proud of achieving another record-breaking year of visitors to Cyprus. Our beautiful island has so much to offer every type of traveler so it’s a not a surprise that nearly four million people chose to visit in 2018 to sample its Blue Flag beaches, rich cultural heritage as well as legendary hospitality and delicious cuisine. We look forward to offering visitors to Cyprus a warm welcome in 2019 and hope it will be yet another successful year for us.”
For more information, go to www.visitcyprus.com, www.facebook.com/visitcyprus.uk or www.twitter.com/visitcyprus.
