Ll odds by lack of tourists
shared this prediction: “If g changes, we can barely stay and to be honest, we’ve almost f the situation does not change ically in the next six months, I tee the closure of at least 20 in Northern Cyprus. e simplest thing that can be ow is to open borders with South without complicating the procend unnecessary bureaucracy. ”
According to the Turkiye Turizm portal (www.turkiyeturizm.com) — the TRNC — a country with a population of 360 thousand people, relies almost entirely on the tourism sector. Students number about 150 thousand, and certainly bring huge benefits to the economy.
Nevertheless, the main income comes from the casinos — the total number of employees is 8,500 people,
32 casinos with a total number of employees of 8,500 people operate in the TRNC
The average amount spent per week by one casino player 7,000 dollars
The annual turnover of TRNC casino is 1 billion dollars
8.7 million foreign citizens visit TRNC annually
2.6 million Turkish citizens visit TRNC annually
and in terms of taxes paid to the state, the largest number of positions in the TOP-50 companies list are occupied by casinos. The annual amount of taxes paid is approximately 500-600 million TL, and the number of visitors annually is seven to eight million.
Many sector employees believe that a full-fledged opening of borders with South Cyprus will dramatically significantly improve the situation, since guests who come from there annually spend 300,000,000 Euros in the casinos of the North.
According to Vedat Erbash, the sector is experiencing great difficulties in keeping their social responsibilities towards employees.
“We paid employees the first month of quarantine from the funds of a group of companies, but cash quickly ran out and we had to resort to credit schemes.
“Payment to all our employees, even in a reduced amount, is our direct responsibility. Interestingly, government measures affected hotel workers, but not casino workers. Hope remained only with the funds expected from Turkey as a measure of state support to firms and companies in crisis situations,” said the businessman.