DOMESTIC tourism bookings for Easter are holding up compared to last year, hoteliers said yesterday.
A programme of special hotel offers for domestic tourists from April 1 to October 30 was announced last week by the Cyprus Hotels Association (PASYXE), as part of an effort to soften the impact on Cyprus tourism of the international economic crisis.
Around 20 of the 120 hotels participating in the PASYXE special offers programme said it had not made any difference to bookings for Easter and the summer so far.
Most 4-star and 5-star hotels have relied on their own advertising, and have good bookings for Easter comparable to last year, and fewer for the summer for the time being. The noticeable exception was the Grecian Park Hotel, overlooking Konnos Bay in Protaras, whose representative said: “We have seen an increase in both enquiries and bookings, with some people mentioning the special offers. We’re very busy over Easter, Kataklysmos, and further ahead, as locals have already started booking their holidays.”
Three-star and 2-star hotels and hotel apartments did not have a large number of Easter bookings, but are getting “the usual number of enquiries” for the Kataklysmos weekend in June and the August 15 holiday, “especially from the student/graduate market for their summer holidays”. A representative of Onisillos Hotel in Larnaca said: “We don’t expect anything from the locals, because we’re only a 2-star establishment and they tend to look further up the scale. Basically, the CTO asked us to participate [in the PASYXE programme], so we agreed without getting our hopes up.”
PASYXE President Haris Loizides said: “The best example of how beneficial the programme could be is the main 3-day Carnival period in Limassol and Paphos. This year, there was a significant increase in hotel use by locals – it was a real shot in the arm for the industry.”
Special prices are being offered to Cypriots and permanent residents by 120 PASYXE members, covering all types of accommodation across the island – hotels from 1-star to 5-star, all three grades of hotel apartments, plus holiday villages. The offers start from as little as €27 per night per couple for a studio and from €30 per night for a double room in a hotel.
Loizides said that the special offers programme was first started in collaboration with the Cyprus Tourism Organisation around five years ago, and is sponsored by American Express card-issuer Bank of Cyprus.
“This year’s prices, which on average are lower than last year’s, do not simply pass on the benefit of government’s emergency measure – they have been made more attractive for obvious commercial reasons. At the lower end of the accommodation scale, prices are 5.0-8.0 per cent lower than last year, and although some high-end hotels have increased their offer price by 1-2 per cent, this is still less than inflation, and below the level of the increase in overheads costs”, Loizides said.
However, since there is limited accommodation at the special offer prices, early booking is recommended, especially for Easter. “The offers are not unlimited. Each participating hotel has set aside a specific number of rooms to offer at the specially-reduced price during the offer period. So people should not expect to get a room at the reduced rate if they phone on 14 August to book for 15 August. We hope that our compatriots get into the European habit of booking in good time, so as to avoid the last-minute rush that results in people complaining that they can’t find rooms, that they’re too expensive, and so on.”
• Details of the offers are available at the websites of PASYXE, Bank of Cyprus (BoC) and the CTO site www.visitcyprus.biz, plus local offices of the CTO and all BoC branches.
