By Athena Karsera
THE POLITICALLY incorrect behaviour of customs officials is the bane of Cyprus tourism, the president of the Cyprus Hotel Managers Association (Pasydixe) said yesterday.
Speaking at Pasydixe’s 17th annual general meeting, John Wood also said the government had to be even more active in attracting tourism.
Tourism Minister Nicos Rolandis meanwhile said that if current 1999 tourism trends continued, Cyprus could make a record £1 billion in tourism this year.
“In the first six-month period of 1999, the increase in tourist arrivals reached 10 per cent in comparison with the same period last year.”
Rolandis said the country’s income form tourism had risen by 17 per cent. “It is especially important that this increase in income is not only a result of more tourist arrivals but also rise in the per capita spending and length of stay.”
But Wood warned the industry it could not rest on its laurels.
“Our friendliness used to be our number one asset, but recently this image has been tarnished badly by the actions of the immigration department at the airports who have made some visitors feel unwelcome on arrival, possibly because of the colour of their skin,” Wood said.
He added that no amount of advertising could mend the damage done if an overseas tabloid picked up and featured just one of these stories.
“We call on the government to ensure that there is no discrimination against bona fidevisitors,” he said, adding that Europeans “did not understand our pro-Serb stance during the Kosovo war.”
Wood said strikes at several of the island’s hotels had also tarnished the way clients saw Cyprus: “Strikes are bad news and the damage they do to our image is immeasurable.”
But Wood also saw a brighter side to the tourism picture: “The Tourism Minister’s efforts to have the Miss Universe 2000 Pageant held in Cyprus are to be applauded as the publicity generated for the island — provided it is professionally handled — will be incredible and no doubt it will spawn other publicity-attracting ideas.”
Wood also pointed out that the BBC television series Sunburnhad generated a lot of “free publicity” for the island.
He added that tax incentives should be made available to encourage the rich and famous to have second homes in Cyprus: “the press would follow them and their presence here would certainly help create an image of quality as well as ‘stargazer’ tourism — the success of Beverly Hills and Monte Carlo is legendary.”
He said tourism was of paramount importance to the island and that if the government’s goal of attracting three million visitors by 2003 was to be achieved, then the tourist season had to be extended and hotels become more specialised.
“Hotels themselves need to innovate by offering a niche, well-focused product, particularly in the five winter months, and they should not try to be everything to everyone — failure to react will result in non-branded hotels suffering since they will not have the benefits of the large distribution and marketing networks.”
He said the hotel industry was no longer as admired by its competitors as it once was, as many highly experienced hotel managers had left the island. He said these managers often wanted to remain involved in the industry but did not have the assets of capital to invest in small hotels, “No ‘value’ is put on the ‘expertise’ and ‘know how’ that these persons have gained over the years, as the Banks want to see tangible assets.”
Wood said Pasydixe had approached the Cyprus Development Bank to be innovative by operating a scheme to develop the ‘small and friendly’ type of hotel, enabling experienced hotel managers to stay in the industry.
“These types of hotel are highly successful in competing destinations as they usually offer excellent food and very personalised service and they will certainly help halt the deterioration of standards that everyone is complaining about.”
Wood also called on the government “not to kill the goose with the golden egg” by increasing VAT. “In fact, we plead for them to reduce it so that Cyprus has two levels of VAT as is the case in some other EU countries.”
Cyprus is gradually raising its levels of VAT in line with EU harmonisation requirements.
Wood said Cyprus already had a reputation for being an expensive destination, so financial incentives were needed to help reduce operating costs.
He said CyTA’s recent decision to reduce the cost of some overseas phone calls was welcome, but that a lot remained to be done, such as reducing electricity and sewage fees.
Pasydixe is the islands leading hotel managers’ association, with 164 active members.
