Press Releases

Tourist Arrivals -95,2% 

The arrivals of tourists reached 5.047 in February 2021, recording a decrease of 95,2% compared to February 2020 (during which 105.592 arrivals were recorded), and a decrease of 95,2% compared to February 2019 (with 105.571 arrivals). For the period of January – February 2021, arrivals of tourists totaled 8.936 compared to 191.214 in the corresponding period of 2020, recording a decrease of 95,3%, as well as a decrease of 95,2% compared to the period of January – February 2019.

Arrivals from Greece were the main source of tourism for the month of February 2021, with a share of 44,6% of total arrivals, followed by Germany with 8,7% and Russia with 8,2%.

Tourist arrivals from Greece decreased by 77,6% compared to February 2020, arrivals from Germany decreased by 91,3% and arrivals from Russia decreased by 94,8%.

For a percentage of 11,6% of tourists, the purpose of their trip in February 2021 was holidays, for 35,2% visit to friends and relatives and for 53,2% business. Respectively, in February 2020, 60,7% of tourists visited Cyprus for holidays, 21,4% visited friends or relatives and 17,8% visited Cyprus for business reasons.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTES

Definitions

Tourists – Visitors who stay for at least one night in Cyprus.

Tourist arrivals – The term refers to the number of trips and not to the number of persons. This differs in the sense that one person can take more than one trips during the reference period.

Source of data and coverage

The statistics for February 2021 were obtained from processing of the data of the electronic platform “Cyprus Flight Pass”. The passengers aiming to travel to Cyprus were required to submit in the above mentioned platform, information in relation to their flight, their country of residence, the purpose of their visit, as well as other demographic characteristics. This information was used by the Statistical Service, in order to estimate the number of tourist arrivals during the reference period.

The weighting of data was conducted based on the data sent to the Statistical Service by the Civil Aviation Department and from the ship manifests, as well as data sent by the Analysis and Statistics Office of the Cyprus Police.

Due to issues that arose from the self-declared information provided by the passengers, it was not possible to provide a more extensive analysis by country of usual residence. 

For more information:

Statistical Service (CYSTAT) Website, subtheme Tourism

Contact

Lucy Panayidou: Tel.:+35722602152, E-mail: lpanagidou@cystat.mof.gov.cy

EH/SCH