The digital campaigns of Cyprus' Deputy Ministry of Tourism are reaching more than one billion smartphones a year, said Deputy Minister Savvas Perdios, speaking at the conference of the Association of Travel Agents "Digi.travel - The Cyprus International Digital Tourism Conference & Expo 2023."

Perdios noted that the Deputy Ministry has stopped spending money on advertising on TV, radio or magazines, because of its limited budget compared to competitive markets, such as Turkey, Italy and Spain.

“We have to be very targeted and get value for money as much as possible. So, the vast majority of the marketing we are doing is now digital. It gives us the chance to be very flexible, to reach customers where they want to be reached, and through our campaigns we reach more than one billion smartphones a year. This is a massive number”, he said.

He added that the searches for Cyprus today compared to 2019 are 30% higher and this is because of targeted digital marketing.

“For a country like us which has really change its tourism identity, there’s no better tool than the internet to spread that message”, he said.

He added that the country has moved on, with the help of digital marketing from “the age of sun and sea” to the age of Cyprus being an island, rich in history and culture, full of authentic experiences which are available year - round, are accessible to all and can be found at very short distances from each other.

He also stressed the importance of a good digital content saying that the Deputy Ministry, mostly used local companies to create this content, stressing that there are a lot of good companies in Cyprus in the content creation space.

Referring to examples of the Deputy Ministry’s digital campaigns, Perdios said that it has launched the route “Heartland of legends” a three thousand kilometres route of authentic experiences which passes exclusively from the mountains, the rural and the remote areas of Cyprus.

“In this platform you can find all these authentic experiences, giving the opportunity to small business to promote themselves easily to the public. We have helped them digitalise what they are offering and make it available to the public”, said Perdios.

He also said that the Deputy Ministry has launched several schemes to help with the digital transition of business, supporting financially business in tourism to go digital.