THE CHAIRMAN of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) was yesterday called to give explanations over the promotion of Cyprus tourism abroad.
Talking to the House Finance Committee, Panos Englezos was invited to analyse the CTO’s advertising campaigns on Eurosport and CNN International (which together cost an annual £760,000), as well as the organisation’s choice of the Global Media company as a mediator.
The CTO’s budget allows for £1.8 million to be spent on international advertising. This fund has been locked by Parliament, with deputies such as EDEK’s Marinos Sizopoulos requesting a detailed explanation of exactly where all the money goes and how it is being spent.
Englezos said that it costs an estimated £20 million to project Cyprus tourism abroad, half of the CTO’s entire annual budget.
He added that the state received an estimated annual income of £1.3 billion from tourism, which makes up around 15 per cent of the island’s GDP.
“The CTO board of directors takes into consideration many parameters when it comes to projecting Cyprus tourism abroad, such as viewership and supplementary offers by international television stations. It negotiates with their representatives and decides who will take on the specific advertisement campaigns,” said Englezos.
At the same time, he continued, the CTO was in constant contact with Cypriot hotel owners and travel agents, as well as local authorities, to co-ordinate ad campaigns and achieve the organisation’s aim to project Cyprus tourism in Europe and all over the world.
Responding to DISY deputy Lefteris Christoforou, the CTO chairman said the island’s tourism would improve further if more funding was given by the state to fund its programmes.
Englezos said the CTO’s efforts to make low-cost airlines include Cyprus on their list of destinations had paid off, adding there had been significant increases in arrivals from Greece, Russia and Scandinavia.
From January-April 2007, there were 40,525 arrivals from Greece up from 34,433 arrivals during the same period last year, 6,277 arrivals from Norway compared to last year’s 4,578, 14,280 arrivals from Sweden compared to 9,672, and 14,575 arrivals from Russia up from last year’s 11,556.
Expressing the hope that these increases would continue, Englezos said they would offer some compensation for the decrease in tourism from Britain, Cyprus’ main tourism market.
Total tourist arrivals during the first four-month period of 2007 were considerably down compared to the year before. In the first four months of 2006 there were 434,645 arrivals, with only 408,572 in the same period this year, six per cent less.
“During discussions over the approval of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s annual budget at the Plenum, a fund worth £1.8 million was locked for advertising in international channels,” said Englezos after the meeting.
He explained that the CTO had been summoned to the Finance Committee to give detailed explanations over “how the money is being used, what security valves there are and how decisions are made, so that Parliament can be convinced that the fund is being used properly and should be given”.
Englezos told reporters that the money had been used to advertise the island on international channels CNN and Eurosport during the years 2003-2006.
He also said that he had informed deputies that “this money is released only following correct evaluation procedures, proper research, negotiation and even the effectiveness of these advertisements is estimated”.
He added that the CTO had made regular interventions to stop the occupied north from advertising as a holiday destination.
“We are trying to stop the pseudostate from advertising and we have truly succeeded in many ways, such as banning them from international channels and international showrooms,” Englezos pointed out.
He went on: “Of course the matter is also political and we cannot intervene everywhere, but where it is possible we stop the pseudostate from advertising.”
He brought London buses as an example: “We didn’t have the ability to stop adverts that were put on double-decker buses. But we immediately reacted and had bigger advertisements put on the same buses, which more than covered the occupied areas’ adverts,” he concluded.
