CYPRUS tourism has fallen into the gap between cheap and quality destinations and needs to speed up reforms in the sector or continue to lose out, hoteliers said yesterday.
“There are three categories of destination: cheap, quality and those in between,” Haris Loizides, chairman of the Hoteliers Association PASYXE, said yesterday.
“Cyprus has lost the advantage of price so it is not cheap. Quality is the aim but until this bears fruit we are in between and fixed as such in the minds of international tour operators.”
Loizides was addressing the annual general meeting of the Association, which was also addressed by President Tassos Papadopoulos, as well as tourism chiefs and ministers.
He called on the government to speed up the implementation of the 2010 strategic plan, which Papadopoulos launched 18 months ago.
“Having lost value for money we lost our competitiveness while our neighbours are rapidly cashing in on value for money and quality,” said Loizides.
He cited Egypt as an example of a country that went rapidly from “cheap” to quality destination, saying that although the average price of a package to Egypt was now higher than Cyprus, it was garnering more tourism.
CTO chairman Photis Photiou said the authorities were facing the difficult task of repositioning Cyprus on the tourism map.
“We want to convert Cyprus to an attractive destination regarding quality and variety,” he said. “We do not underrate the problems and difficulties, and say all is rosy. We know it’s a hard road but it’s a road of no return. It’s easy to criticise, but it’s not easy to offer an alternative.”
Photiou said there had been many positive results from the implementation of the strategic plan over the past 18 months. The new policy on golf had been approved and shortly the proposal for the new Limassol conference centre would be submitted to the cabinet, he said. The incentives for upgrading beds would be available shortly and the CTO had agreed a new hotel classification system with hoteliers, he added.
“These revolutionary changes will contribute to the quality of our product,” said Photiou.
Both Photipu and Loizides agreed that 2005 would be another difficult year for tourism in Cyprus. Projections put the number of arrivals five per cent up on last year, but revenue is still very much down, although Photiou said he was optimistic for the year’s results.
Loizides painted a blacker picture. “Unfortunately we are not in a better state than last year. The last 12 months have not been easy for Cyprus. It’s been characterised by uncertainty and EU accession,” he said.
“The political uncertainty remains and there is uncontrolled sprawl of development in the north. In the next few years this will not only have political but also economic effects and we call of the government to remedy this.”
Loizides said hoteliers were worried about the situation, saying that in 2004 tourism worldwide rose 20 per cent overall while Cyprus went in the opposite direction. He said the government was focusing too much on arrivals when revenue was a bigger issue.
“We make a big mistake if we continue to use arrivals as our barometer when the figures for revenue are even more disappointing,” he said, adding that in the past four years arrivals fell 13 per cent but the reduction in income fell 23 per cent.
“I agree it’s difficult to turn the clock back and reduce costs but it’s not impossible,” said Loizides.
He called on the Finance Ministry to look again at costs facing the hoteliers and particularly the three per cent CTO tax on all services, along with indirect taxation such as water, electricity, sewage and litter charges. “There is a long list and these are heavy burden,” he said.
Loizides said many hoteliers have over the past number of years invested heavily in upgrading their product and taken out loans to do so to the tune of around £68 million, which has put many in a difficult position.
He called for a high-level closed-doors meeting with the President where solutions could be thrashed out.
“The wind of change is sweeping global tourism and as a country we do not have the luxury of hiding in our little shelter. We have to seize the moment,” he said.
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