Press Releases

Tourist arrivals +208,7%

The arrivals of tourists reached 321.858 in August 2021, recording an increase of 208,7% compared to August 2020 (during which 104.261 arrivals were recorded), and a decrease of 41,9% compared to August 2019 (with 553.845 arrivals).

For the period of January – August 2021, arrivals of tourists totaled 960.150 compared to 424.850 in the corresponding period of 2020, recording an increase of 126,0%, and a decrease of 64,9% compared to the period of January – August 2019 (2.735.839 arrivals).

Arrivals from Russia were the main source of tourism for August 2021, with a share of 27,2% (87.427) of total arrivals, followed by the United Kingdom with 22,9% (73.683), Poland with 7,1% (22.893), Ukraine with 4,6% (14.863), Greece with 3,9% (12.546) and Germany with 3,2% (10.284).                                                                                               

For a percentage of 87,7% of tourists, the purpose of their trip in August 2021 was holidays, for 9,9% visit to friends and relatives and for 2,3% business. Respectively, in August 2020, 78,0% of tourists visited Cyprus for holidays, 17,9% visited friends or relatives and 4,1% 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 August 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

(MG/ECHR)