Tourism sector recovering from Covid-19 pandemic

THE number of arrivals at the TRNC’s air and sea ports in the first eight months of 2022 was up 371 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year, new figures show.

According to a report published by the Deputy Prime Ministry and Tourism, Culture, Youth and the Environment Ministry’s Tourism Planning Department, the number of passengers arriving in North Cyprus in 2021 was just 173,315 due to restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However the number of arrivals so far this year – 816,408 – is still 26 per cent lower than the same period of 2019, the final full year before the pandemic.

The report also noted the following: “The number of foreign [non-TRNC and non-Turkish citizens] passengers arriving from January-August 2022 has reached 70 per cent of the number of foreign passengers arriving during the same period of 2019.

“The number of Turkish citizens has reached 75 per cent of the number of passengers from Turkey in the same period of 2019.

“During this period, the largest number of foreign passengers arriving to our country by air and sea came from the UK (24,385), Iran (19,534), Germany (16,389) and Russia (16,101).”

The report also noted an uplift in the number of people crossing into the TRNC from South Cyprus, reaching around 3.047 million from January-August 2022.

The Tourism Planning Department said the increase in traffic to the North was due to the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and the depreciation of the Turkish lira against major foreign currencies.

The report said that the number of South Cyprus citizens who entered the TRNC rose in comparison to the previous year to about 1.88 million.

It is estimated that the total number of people staying in touristic accommodation facilities from January-August 2022 has increased to 636,527, of which 420,080 are Turkish citizens and 167,249 are foreign nationals, compared to the previous year.

The number was 146,315 during the same period of 2021, 238,816 in 2020 and 743,883 in 2019.

It is estimated that the total number of overnight stays in touristic accommodation facilities from January-August 2022 is 2.4 million, increasing 391.8 per cent compared to the previous year. The number of overnight stays was 488,031 in 2021, 715,115 in 2020 and 2,886,323 in 2019.