March tourist arrivals up 43%

Tourist arrivals increased for the third consecutive month this year, with the number of holidaymakers in March rising 43% year on year to 184,263.

This was up from 119,081 in February from 71,921 in the same month last year, an increase of 65.6%, with the UK accounting for a quarter of these arrivals.

The Statistical Service (Cystat) said in its monthly report on tourist arrivals that during the first quarter of the year, the island welcomed 393,893 travellers, up 61% from the 244,705 recorded in January-March last year.

At this rate, Cyprus will enjoy a second year of post-Covid recovery after 3.2 mln tourists last year, with July being the best month, breaking past the 450,000 mark, despite losing an estimated 800,000 tourists from Ukraine and Russia due to the war and sanctions.

The UK remained the biggest market in March, accounting for 33.8% or 62,282 tourists, followed by Israel with 22,813 (12.4%), Greece with 15,122 (8.2%), Poland 14,049 (7.6%) and Germany with 12,864 (7.0%).

Some 113,805 Cyprus residents returned from a trip abroad in March compared to 59,918 in the same month last year, an increase of 89.9%.

Greece accounted for 30.3% of all trips abroad (34,455), followed by the United Kingdom with 14.4% (16,386), Bulgaria with 4.0% (4,527) and Italy with 3.5% (3,959).

The Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) rose by 6.1% since March 2022 and by 6.5% for the three months of January to March compared to the same period last year.

Compared to March 2022, Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels (15.5%) and Restaurants and Hotels (9.1%) were the largest changes. Compared to February , the largest change was in Clothing and Footwear (9,7%).

For January - March, the largest annual changes were in Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels (17,4%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (9,0%). As regards the economic origin, the largest change when compared to the index of March 2022 was recorded in Energy (10,3%).

When compared to the index of the previous month, the largest change was in Non energy industrial goods (3,2%)

Meanwhile, the euro area’s annual inflation rate dropped from 8.5% to 6.9%, while the European Union’s annual inflation fell from 9.9% to 8.3%.

A year earlier, in March 2022, the annual inflation rate was 6.2% in Cyprus, 7.4% in the eurozone and 7.8% in the EU.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Luxembourg (2.9%), Spain (3.1%) and the Netherlands (4.5%).

The highest annual rates were recorded in Hungary (25.6%), Latvia (17.2%) and Czechia (16.5%). Compared with February, annual inflation fell in 25 States and rose in two.

In March, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from food, alcohol & tobacco (+3.12 percentage points, pp), followed by services (+2.10 pp), nonenergy industrial goods (+1.71 pp) and energy (-0.05 pp).