Tourism revenue dives 85.1% in 10 months

Income from Cyprus tourism was crushed by the pandemic in the first ten months of 2020 with revenue dipping 85.1% from the year before.

In October alone, receipts from tourism fell by year-on-year, official data showed Wednesday.

Revenue from tourism in October reached EUR 77.4 mln from EUR 299.4 mln in the same month of 2019.

For the 10 months to October, revenue from tourism is estimated at EUR 376.3 mln compared to EUR 2.53 bln in the same period last year, recording a decrease of 85.1%.

74.1%

The expenditure per person in October increased by 11.9% to EUR 767.66 compared to EUR 685.82 in the same month of 2019.

Daily expenditure per person for October 2020 compared recorded a 12.6% decrease from EUR 77.06 to EUR 67.34) whereas the average length of stay increased by 28.1% from 8.9 days to 11.4.

A mixture of national lockdowns, quarantine and travel restrictions has decimated the island’s tourism industry which generated EUR 2.68 bln last year on record 3.97 million tourist arrivals.

Tourism was badly affected following lockdown measures taken by Cyprus to contain the spread of COVID-19, including the ban on commercial flights from March to early June.

Spiralling cases in Cyprus also saw its biggest tourism market the UK impose quarantine on arrivals who travelled to the holiday island. Under normal circumstances, income generated from tourism contributes around 15% to GDP, the picture is very different for 2020.