The tourist arrivals are close to the 2019 record, as visits exceeded 3.8 million, according to the announcement yesterday by the Statistical Service.
As reported, the total tourist arrivals for 2023 reached 3,845,652, compared to 3,201,080 during the corresponding period in 2022, marking a double-digit increase of 20.1%. In comparison to the record year of 2019, when tourist arrivals had reached 3,976,777 at the peak, there is only a slight decrease of 3.3%.
This decrease essentially confirms the full recovery of the tourism sector after the pandemic, considering that during the interim period, tourist Cyprus lost its second main market, the Russian market, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions.
Moreover, if there were no new geopolitical upheavals in our neighborhood and the attacks by Hamas on Israel that caused the ongoing war in Gaza did not occur, it would not have been unlikely for the past year to close with a new historic record in visits.
However, the war in Gaza last October interrupted the impressive course of arrivals from Israel in the last quarter of the year, without, however, removing Israel from the second position in significance and market numbers for Cypriot tourism for the entire 2023, second only to the British market.