The Director of the Paphos Region Tourism Development and Promotion Company, Nassos Hadjigeorgiou, told the Cyprus News Agency that although there was a very good planning for the winter flight schedule of several airlines, unfortunately, due to the pandemic and the unpredictable situation we are experiencing, aircraft load factors are at very low levels, and there are a number of cancellations flights, he said.
He also estimated that after the first week of January, a drastic reduction of flights from a number of airports is likely to occur. The focus now, he continued, is on next year, and forecasts are focused on 2022 with the hope that the pandemic will subside and there will be no serious losses.
In addition, Hajigeorgiou said that there is a need from everyone around the world to restart the tourism industry. Both, he said, from states, from potential travelers as well as from airlines, tour operators, hotel and catering industry and all those directly or indirectly related to the tourism industry. He estimated that the tourism industry in Cyprus can be restarted, albeit slowly, if the epidemiological picture of our country allows it, initially perhaps with domestic tourism and then with visitors from other countries depending on the categorisation and from various other countries.
Meanwhile, there are no flight cancellations at Paphos and Larnaca airports until the end of December, Hermes estimates, according to its spokesman, however with the start of the new year and the month of January there will be a clearer picture, he states.
For his part, the president of the Paphos Hoteliers Association, Thanos Michaelides, told the Cyprus News Agency that without an adequate flight schedule Cyprus tourism cannot grow, adding that this year at Paphos airport, they had flights from new destinations where in the past this was not the case. This, Michaelides said, helped increase the flow of bookings to hotels when the now main market, which is the UK, had no momentum at all. He also said that the issue of flights is a complex issue, a financial decision that each airline has to make and is also related to the popularity of Cyprus as a destination.
As far as the winter season of 2021- 2022 is concerned, there are flights and flights are continuing from new destinations to Paphos and Larnaca, but he said that due to the pandemic and the development with the Omicron variant, bookings to hotels have decreased. Indicatively, Michaelides said that they have received cancellations relating to the months of December, January and February which certainly complicates the already problematic situation concerning the Pafos hotel industry. He also added that there are hotels that are reconsidering their decision to stay in operation for the winter season that we are going through now.
Regarding flights, Michaelides noted that not all the tourists that come to Cyprus end up in hotels, stressing that there are people who choose to stay in a licensed tourist accommodation without, as he said, having specific statistics on this.
Asked about this, he said that flights from new destinations were boosted this year, such as from France in the summer, which were usually not there and even from two new airports.
In relation to the German market, Mr. Michaelides said that there were flights this year but the performance was not what was expected.
He also said it was important to get new flights in and maintain them, stating that in the long term the strategy should be to create demand for the Cyprus destination.
Source: CNA
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