A NORTH Cyprus tourism company this week succeeded in persuading UK travel giant Thomson to put its brochures back on shelves, just a week after pressure from the Cyprus Tourist Organisation (CTO) apparently forced Thomson to take them down.
“This is a poke in the eye for the CTO. For years they have succeeded in blocking promotion of north Cyprus, but this time they have come in second,” Managing Director of Paradise Holidays Alan Suleyman told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
The reinstatement of Cyprus Paradise’s brochures onto the shelves of 773 Thomson branches across the UK came after a 10-day row that saw Suleyman threaten the CTO and Thomson with legal action.
Suleyman said yesterday he had been ready to go to court over what he described as Thomson’s “breach of contract” and the CTO’s “incitement to breach of contract”, and went as far as sending letters through his lawyers informing them of his plans. It seems Thomson and CTO reversed their decision to squeeze out the Turkish Cypriot-owned holiday company amid fears that they might lose the case.
Yesterday, CTO head Photis Photiou denied any attempt to push Cyprus Paradise out of the market, claiming the decision to remove the brochures had been purely Thomson’s. Clearly angered by the case, Photiou told the Mail, “I’m not the representative of Thomson. It was their decision. I don’t care. I have nothing to say”.
Suleyman insisted, however, it had always been the CTO’s policy to lean on foreign travel companies that forge business links with Turkish Cypriot tourism interests.
Furthermore, he said Thomson did not attempt to hide the fact that their initial decision to remove the Cyprus Paradise brochures from their branches came as a direct result of “very heavy pressure” from the CTO.
“The expression Thomson’s people used was ‘very heavy pressure from the CTO’,” Suleyman said, adding that he was also told that the CTO had threatened to withhold subsidies to the travel giant if it did not cut ties with Cyprus Paradise.
“Thomson take several hundred thousand to the Republic of Cyprus each year, so we are talking about a large amount of money here,” Suleyman said.
Thomson informed Suleyman on Thursday his company’s brochures would be back on the shelves yesterday, just over a week after they were removed.
Although obviously delighted, Suleyman, whose wife is Greek Cypriot, said he took no pleasure in battling with Greek Cypriots who would like to see him go out of business.
Although he says he holds the CTO responsible, he says he has no interest in pursuing legal action against the body. He does expect Thomson, however, to foot the legal bills he has incurred.
“I am not interested in the CTO. I am a businessman, not a politician,” Suleyman said yesterday, adding: “The Turks are seeing this as a victory, but nothing can be a victory when Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are fighting each other like this”.
