Tourists are entering Akamas peninsula villages in numbers not seen before in the area’s history, with local officials crediting a presidential plan to link development and beautification projects across the peninsula’s communities into a single visitor experience.
“For the first time in the history of the peninsula, since last month we are seeing tourists coming into the communities in large numbers — not just passing through on the way to the beaches and natural monuments of Akamas,” local stakeholders told Phileleftheros.
President Nikos Christodoulides announced the incentive plan in early 2024. It was put into effect last summer and, according to local officials, its results are already clearly visible this year.
Giagkos Tsivikos, Deputy Mayor of Akamas Municipality for the Ineia district, told Phileleftheros that Christodoulides’s commitment to developing and implementing the plan in a way that benefits the communities is being delivered, with the first organised visits already under way.
Tsivikos said the president announced the incentive scheme at the inauguration of three new projects in the community of Ineia — the Aphrodite thematic trail, the Turtle Museum, and the regeneration of the community centre — stressing that the plan would give all the development work carried out in Akamas communities in recent months the visibility needed to attract visitors.
Christodoulides said at the time that the plan did not amount to preferential treatment for the peninsula’s communities, given the widely acknowledged reality that Akamas residents have for years been unable to develop their properties in the way people elsewhere in Cyprus can. “The significance of Akamas exceeds the narrow limits of the area and gives our efforts national reach,” he said.
Tsivikos said the inaugurated projects create significant development opportunities for people in the area, adding that everyone should recognise that village residents are those who care most about the Akamas environment — because it is that environment which makes their area unique and gives it its advantages.
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