Tourist arrivals in February failed to follow the upward trend of the tourist arrivals in January 2005. According to CYSTAT data released on Thursday, tourist arrivals in February dropped 4.1% to 72.600 against an increase of 4.2% in January 2005, which was accompanied by a drop in tourist revenues by 5%. For January-February 2005, tourist arrivals recorded a drop to 131,494, which is lower by 0.5% compared to the corresponding period of 2004.

Despite the downward in the first two months of 2005, the CTO is optimistic about the future, expecting an increase of 4% or 5% and a stabilization in tourist revenues. “We expect that tourist arrivals will increase in 2005 given the positive messages that we have from the UK and Germany. We have more reservations now than last year”, CTO Chairman, Fotis Fotiou said.

PASYXE General Manager, Zacharias Ioannides confirmed the statements of the CTO Chairman. “Reservations have showed an increse compared to 2003 but there are still margins to achieve our goal”, he concluded.