Tourist arrivals in Cyprus were up by 153.7% on annual basis in the first nine months of this year, while still down by 60.1% compared to 2019, data released by the Cyprus Statistical Service (CyStat) on Wednesday show.

According to a press release published on CyStat`s website, the arrivals of tourists reached 339,242 in September 2021, recording an increase of 288.4% compared to September 2020 (during which 87,334 arrivals were recorded), and a decrease of 35.3% compared to September 2019 (with 524,707 arrivals).

It says tor the period of January – September 2021, arrivals of tourists totalled 1,299,392 compared to 512,184 in the corresponding period of 2020, recording an increase of 153.7%, and a decrease of 60.1% compared to the period of January – September 2019 (3,260,546 arrivals).

Arrivals from the United Kingdom were the main source of tourism for September 2021, with a share of 28.8% (97,741) of total arrivals, followed by Russia with 26.2% (88,983), Poland with 6.1% (20,625), Ukraine with 4.4% (14,767), Greece with 4.1% (13,944) and Germany with 3.7% (12,608).

The data show that for a percentage of 86.6% of arrivals, the purpose of their trip in September 2021 was holidays, for 9.3% visit to friends and relatives and for 4.1% business. Respectively, in September 2020, 79.5% visited Cyprus for holidays, 13.4% visited friends or relatives and 7.2% visited Cyprus for business reasons.

Cypriot residents travelling abroad up by 154.5% this September, Greece the favourite destination

According to CyStat a total number of 66,452 residents of Cyprus returned from a trip abroad in September 2021, compared to 26,111 in the corresponding month last year, recording an increase of 154.5% and 49.8% decrease compared to September 2019.

The main countries from which the residents of Cyprus returned in September 2021, were Greece with 42.6%, the United Kingdom with 10.0%, Russia with 6.2% and Italy with 5.1%.

It is noted that the statistics for September 2021 were obtained from processing of the data of the electronic platform “Cyprus Flight Pass”. Due to issues that arose from the self-declared information provided by the passengers, it was not possible to provide a more extensive analysis, CyStat clarifies.