POLICE have announced they will be stepping up enforcement of tough new fines against rogue taxi drivers and restaurant touts in an effort to upgrade the tourist product as the key summer season approaches.
It’s a welcome development: there is little more unpleasant than having to run a gauntlet of tourist restaurants and shops, ignoring the efforts of owners and employees trying to drag you in; a rip-off taxi fare, meanwhile, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth that lingers long after the holiday is over.
Like so much else, this all a legacy of the tacky sun and sea holiday market we seem to have so much difficulty dragging ourselves away from, showing an unpleasant contempt for our visitors. Tourists nowadays know perfectly well what they want – they are coming to a European destination (God knows, we repeat it often enough), where they can find their own way around and take their own decisions without the kind of harassment that simply ends up driving them away.
But while the crackdown is itself welcome, it raises worrying questions about the overstretching of police resources. The Paphos police chief recently admitted to local residents trying to set up a neighbourhood watch scheme that most of his resources were tied up with traffic enforcement and chasing up fines. Are we not running the risk of adding yet another labour-intensive duty for a force that is finding it increasingly hard to cope with soaring crime – and this at a time when the government has made it clear that there are no extra funds available for the police?
Improving the tourist product is essential for a country so dependent on the industry, but so is the safety of the public. We should not be asked to choose. Indeed, the Paphos Chamber of Commerce recently warned that tourists were increasingly concerned about safety. Only this Wednesday, a tourist couple were mugged in Limassol after berating youths for their dangerous behaviour on a moped: the man ended up in hospital and his girlfriend had her bag stolen for good measure.
This kind of story is even more damaging to tourism than the unpleasantness of thieving taxi drivers and irritating touts. What’s more, it is leading increasing numbers of foreign residents to reconsider their future on the island – a trickle that if it becomes a flood will see the departure of significant amounts of cash from our economy. And most important of all, it is impacting on the quality of life of every single citizen of this country, bringing to our doorsteps the kind of insecurity that we thought we’d left behind when we returned from university. Those people are voters, and government and opposition would do well to heed their fears.
