THE STATE’S lacklustre measures to support the tourism and hotel industry had not helped travel agents and hoteliers to offer discount holiday packages, the Chairman of the House Commerce Committee claimed yesterday.
The Committee had convened to discuss a number of complaints from hotel owners and travel agents that they had found it impossible to offer discounts, despite the state’s recent announcement of measures to support the tourism industry.
Speaking after the meeting, Committee Chairman Lefteris Christoforou of DISY said he was worried about the “relaxed manner” in which the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) was dealing with the financial crisis.
“We hope the CTO is right, though this relaxed attitude contradicts the fears of those implicated in the tourism industry,” said Christoforou.
But the head of the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA), Victor Mantovani, played down the whole affair, saying there were only one or two isolated complaints. He added that the association was in constant contact with the hoteliers and there weren’t any problems.
The president of the Cyprus Hotels Association PASYXE, Haris Loizides, was equally reassuring, saying that all implicated bodies were primarily concerned with transferring the funds offered by the government to the consumer.
“As hoteliers, we want to see our discounts end up on European travel agents, promoting Cyprus as a special price destination,” said Loizides.
He added that the market was understandably numb at the moment and bookings as a result were exceptionally low.
Loizides also said that the recent proposed measures to reinforce tourism had not yet been approved by parliament. Once this happened, he explained, added discounts would be announced.
Meanwhile, the Committee also discussed the financial problems faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Christoforou repeated his party’s suggestion of creating a Guarantees Fund for SMEs. “The lack of communication and organisation between the government services, have led this discussion to a dead end,” he said after the meeting.
He said it was of vital significance that these businesses were supported in order for them to survive the current financial crisis.
“The €300 million offered by the European Investment Bank will not go directly to small and medium-sized enterprises with favourable conditions; they will go through the banking sector first and this will not solve the viability and liquidity problems faced by the small and medium-sized businesses,” said Christoforou.
The usual bureaucracy that characterises state services, he added, was also preventing measures to support SMEs from being implemented.
“The state has not yet realised that 63,000 small and medium-sized businesses are in danger of closing down if they are not supported, creating huge problems for the state’s economy,” the Committee Chairman concluded.
DIKO MP Nicolas Papadopoulos pointed out that more than 99 per cent of the island’s businesses are SMEs, adding that the spinal cord of Cyprus’ economy was bending dangerously. “We don’t want to see this spinal cord collapsing,” he said. “After today’s meeting, we are even more concerned for small and medium-sized enterprises.”
