With over thirty years of experience in travel and tourism, Cyprus struggles to define a unique competitive platform for the 21st century traveller
WHEN ONE thinks of any given country, or indeed, any given city, we automatically associate it with a plethora of images, structures, cultural and historical artifacts which intrinsically define the country.
Travel and tourism abounds in such destinations which have a unique and competitive selling point. We inherently associate France with the romanticism of Paris, French wines, the Riviera and of course, the Eiffel Tower. The ancient and far-reaching Egyptian civilisation of Pharaohs, pyramids, mummies and desert is highly accessible to any tourist as are the vast savannas of the Serengeti in Tanzania. Australia has its unusual fauna as well as the coral reefs; England has its castles; India, its exoticism and the Taj Mahal; Dubai has shopping and gold and the United States, well, just has it all.
It begs the question: what exactly is it that is so unique about Cyprus? What is it that sets our island apart and gives it its core identity? What attracts new and returning tourists to the island year after year?
Evidently, tourists are attracted to islands for their physical and climatic characteristics, but also for the less tangible element of ‘island-ness’. That said, Bali, the Caribbean or the Maldives have more exotic and inherently indigenous elements, not to mention better beaches and marine tourism than our island. One can argue proximity of Cyprus as a tourist destination relative to the rest of the EU countries.
Coined ‘the Island of Love’, Cyprus cannot claim the market niche of the Mediterranean, as tourists hold the paradise paradigm of the surfeit of genuinely Greek islands which Cyprus lays in the proximity of, but does not quite make it as a part of this clique. Indeed, the Mediterranean is studded with islands – Sicily, Corsica, Majorca, Ibiza, Sardinia – which, as holiday destinations, hold more water, so to speak that our sunny island.
Former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Nicos Rolandis was quoted as saying, “Tourism in Cyprus is faceless. I believe Cyprus needs an identity and that identity should be Aphrodite.” Speaking with Rolandis recently, he said he still holds the same view, “Cyprus does not have an adequate tourism identity as a destination. In the past we tried to project the image of Aphrodite as the symbol of Cyprus and this was achieved in many ways; from holding the Miss Universe beauty pageant in Cyprus to the construction of the statue of Aphrodite in the Paphos area, but this was never implemented.”
Rolandis says during his time in parliament, Cyprus had achieved the largest increase in tourism revenues and arrivals between the years 1998 and 2001. Income from tourism went up by 51 per cent, from £840 million to £1.270 billion. There was of course a decline during the wake of September 11, but thereafter, tourism never caught up.
“Tourism revenues today are well below £1 billion and arrivals are in the region of 2.4 million. Nothing was achieved by way of increase, and there is no solid indication as far as I can see of improvement” says Rolandis.
“We are an island with over 11,000 years of history and culture and yet I believe Cyprus still remains a faceless destination. Aphrodite will certainly bring more tourists. If Cyprus could be identified with Venus, which is a paradigm recognised the world over as the Goddess of Love and Beauty and we could capitalise on these facts. Today, if we had managed to orchestrate these results, then revenues could very well be at £1.5billion. Currently, we are just hovering around a figure of £2.4 million.”
Former economic advisor to the President, and now the Director General of Intercollege’s Research and Development Centre, Professor Andreas Theophanos, takes a slightly different approach to the problem of identity, “Tourist products must have some diversification. Sun, sea, and sand have value, but are limiting.”
Tourism undoubtedly remains the primary engine of Cypriot growth, however, this is seasonal and Cyprus suffers an economic lull during the winter months. According to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation’s Strategic Plan for Tourism Development 2003-2010, a main aim is to make Cyprus a year-round tourist destination.
George Lillikas, current Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism says that the implementation of this Tourism Strategy aims to make Cyprus a “quality” tourist destination. “Lillikas is using the plan we prepared and started implementing during my years,” explains Rolandis. “We started with tenders for marinas, after a 15 year delay, golf courses, agrotourism, cultural events, theme parks, athletic tourism, conference tourism et cetera. We also have excellent hotels. This is quality.”
By promoting athletic tourism and encouraging private enterprises to develop golf courses in the Ayia Napa and Larnaca areas, Cyprus would cash in on its relatively mild winters by attracting golfers from colder countries. The CTO also expects to cultivate religious tourism and formulating island-wide hiking and cycling trails.
Theophanos strongly recommends that this initiative be taken, “We may have a niche, where tourists coming from the surrounding countries may want a mountainous climate for example, as their countries do not have this. I can’t stress the importance of developing conference tourism.
“Malta, despite the constraints of size, has been able to successfully achieve this by partaking in joint-ventures with more established EU countries.” However, Theophanous poses the more provocative debate of why the American tourist market has not been tapped into yet.
Potential tourist revenues and arrivals from this market may well rival the totals of what Cyprus receives from its current EU travel and tourism market. Indeed, Cyprus could take a leaf out of Britain’s marketing plan, where on October 6 ABC’s Good Morning America featured a live tour broadcast from inside Windsor Castle as part of a campaign to woo US tourists back to Britain after a drop in recent years.
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) highlights the importance of long-term planning and the need to factor travel and tourism into all government policy developments and decisions. By upgrading the level of tourism in Cyprus to EU levels to cater for new and ever-increasing clientele, Cyprus can indeed secure many market niches.
Currently though, Cyprus suffers from coastal degradation caused by industrial and agricultural activities, and the loss of wildlife habitats due to urbanisation. Outside of the luxury of the 4 and 5 star hotel resorts, tourists are faced with a city dump – a grey urban spread of unsightly and never-ending road, building and sewage works.
“The main problem in this direction is when it comes to [civic] strategy,” says Theophanous. “There needs to be correct planning and quality control, and of course respecting the environmental laws that we ourselves have passed, for example the trash law. We have to start implementing our already existing laws before passing new ones.”
Rolandis strongly feels that these infrastructural changes are a necessity, “the situation in Troodos Square, with all its delays, is a shame.”
The impact of government policy has far more wider-reaching impacts on tourism than is estimated. The partial opening of the borders between the Turkish-occupied North and the South has affected tourism to some extent according to Rolandis.
“We failed to unify Cyprus. If we had succeeded with the unification project, we would have promoted Cyprus as a single, unified destination. Now, Turkish-Cypriots use property to build hotels without having contributed any capital to the state.”
Cyprus loses inestimable revenue to the no
rth daily from tourist activity there. The CTO Officers at the Larnaca Airport, who are often the first point of contact for tourists once they arrive in Cyprus, are often bombarded with questions pertaining to the north.
So what makes Cyprus unique? “There are certainly advantages to our island. Easy access is important,” said Theophanous. But Cyprus certainly has a fair amount of barriers in realising its potential as a completive tourist destination, “The biggest obstacle are high costs,” offers Rolandis, “So we must offer value for money.”
The WTTC recently released the 2004 World Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Monitor which tracks a wide range of information under eight main categories, which indicate to what extent a country offers a competitive environment for Travel & Tourism development.
The new statistics demonstrate that Brazil and India are the most price competitive counties in terms of travel and tourism, while Norway is the most competitive in terms of social development for the second year running. Malta followed by Singapore lead in infrastructural development.
The achievement in human tourism includes indices that look at the economic impact of travel & tourism demand, consumption, exports, imports, balance, personal and business travel and the numbers of arrivals and departures is headed by Fiji, the Maldives and the Seychelles, all highly successful island destinations.
Cyprus features in fourth place on the openness indices, which take into account tourism openness using data including visa requirements, the extent to which a country is open to international tourism, trade openness and taxes on international trade. Cyprus is preceded by Hong Kong, Macao (China) and Aruba in first place.
This information has often been ignored in past research. However, a country’s openness to trade is a further significant determinant of growth. Given this small but significant prop, Cyprus could very well be under way in curbing its identity crisis through consistent and creative strategic manoeuvres.
