CTO encouraged by tourism figures

TOURISM was up 6.4 per cent year on year in September, the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) said yesterday.

The latest figures bring the total rise in the first nine months of the year to 1.1 per cent over the first nine months of 2006.

The figures mean that between January and September this year, 1,972,493 tourists visited Cyprus so far this year.

Despite a slight lull in the island’s biggest market, the UK, during much of 2006, the number of British visitors was up 4.7 per cent last month over September last year, some 9,000 extra tourists.

Also still rising was the Russian market, up 43.9 per cent to 22,839 visitors. Tourism from France was up 35.5 per cent. Sweden was up 22.5 per cent but the German market, the island’s second biggest, continued its slump with a fall of 5.9 per cent in September over the same month last year.

In a statement the CTO said the results for the month were satisfactory, particularly from the UK because September was the first month in 2007 where an increase was noted. It called the Russian increase “impressive”.
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The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.