Tourist arrivals for December have showed a significant increase, while arrivals for the full year 2003 dropped by 4.8%, close to the forecasts of the Finance Ministry. The constant improvement of the British market, the impressive increase in the Greek tourist arrivals and the drop in the losses from Germany have contributed heavily to the increase in tourist arrivals, which soared by 7.8%. Overall, tourist arrivals for December reached 84 thousand, against 78 thousand in December 2002

This improvement increased the total number of arrivals to 2.3 million, which is significantly lower than 2.4 million in 2002 and 2.7 million in 2000-2001. 58% of the tourist arrivals in 2003 (1.3 million) were British, followed by Germany with 129 thousand or 5.6% and Greece with 110 thousand or 4.7%.

According to CYSTAT data released on Wednesday, losses from the market of Central Europe were particularly high. In 2003, German tourist arrivals dropped by 26% to 45 thousand, while Swiss arrivals declined by 42% to 27 thousand. The losses resulting from these two countries are almost two thirds of this year’s losses in tourist arrivals.

The Finance Ministry and CTO anticipate that tourist industry for 2004 will recover, with tourist arrivals increasing by 5%. Until 2006, it is estimated that Cyprus will return to the record levels of 2000-2001.