Tourist traffic in Cyprus, so far, has reached 75% of 2019, Deputy Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios said on Thursday, adding that many more tourists from other markets such as Germany, Switzerland, France and Greece choose Cyprus as their destination.

He said that given the challenges of the past years, namely the pandemic and the war in Ukraine “we haven’t done so bad after all.”

Perdios noted that the efforts of the past three years to attract new markets have yielded results. According to him, many more Germans, Greeks, French, Poles, Swiss, Scandinavians, Hungarians, Israelis and others are now visiting the island and this is the result of coordinated efforts of the Deputy Ministry, all others involved in the tourist sector and Hermes, as regards connectivity issues.

He said that when the war broke out in Ukraine, the authorities put into motion a plan B, adding that "we see that July was a very good month and so is August and we expect the same occupancies for September too."

Perdios unveiled the strategy for the redefinition of Cyprus tourism saying that there are currently 15 funding schemes and two more will be announced by the end of the year.

He said that we no longer promote only the nice weather, the food and the rural areas of Cyprus but we have built targeted strategies that have to do with the cuisine, vegan friendly restaurants, Cyprus wines, trails, Troodos geopark, Christmas villages, colourful villages and many more.