Blogging Cyprus Tourism

Cyprus Airways fails with Russian Market

According to valid unofficial information, Cyprus Airways failed to agree with tour operators from St. Petersburg in Russia to take over the flights of the bankrupt Eurocypria airlines.
Cyprus airways and the Russian stakeholders did not agree on the prices the airline asked and therefore the negotiations have failed.

This is huge hit towards the bleeding Cypriot Tourism industry since it lets Cyprus tourism without many options to re-conquer the Russian market. Here is worth mentioning that the Cypriot state managed to simplify the visa issue for Russian visitors and only this action gave an increase of 50% on tourism arrivals from the Russian Federation.

It seems that Cyprus Airways cannot cope with the flights undertaken by the already bankrupt Eurocypria and the promises of the Cypriot administration cannot be fulfilled at least in the short term. This turnout leaves the steam engine of the Cypriot economy without fuel. The Cypriot tourism stakeholders have just had the fist signs of the incompetiveness of their state which will cost to the country much more than tourism arrivals.

Cyprus air transport is going through a very tough period due to corruption and wrong management. The stubbornness of the Cypriot government to hide problems for many years, the boards of directors of the two airlines need to go under investigation now and clarify who is responsible for this very serious economic disaster the country is about to face. At the same time brave decisions are needed to privatise the air transport sector and give back to the market the good name and good reputation in such a way that the tour operators and travels regain trust to Cyprus as a destination.

Travel Statistics for an unchanged face of Tourists to Cyprus

Positive points for Cyprus Tourism  as Arrivals surpass the 2 million visitor mark in October

Good news as Cyprus Tourism breaks with the psychological barrier of two million visitors, 1 month ahead of schedule compared to 2009.

These positive figures are a good indication that traditional markets are recovering, and this is of real importance, as Cyprus retains a 93% tourism dependency on arrivals from European markets.

The good side to this dependency, is that, it is reliant on markets for which Cyprus is already known, which in times of crisis and uncertainty, can be seen as an advantage and perhaps a good vantage point for Tourism Promotion to be exploiting commercially.

As one can observe from the comparative Top 10 countries ranking over the last 3 years,  83% of total arrivals (Jan-October) seem to comfortably place the UK, Russia, Germany, Greece and Scandinavia ahead in the rankings as the most relevant countries principal visitors to Cyprus.  The most significant change perhaps, is the return to consolidation of countries such as Germany and Scandinavia  which experienced over very strong recovery growth from 2009. The percentage increase from 2009 also proved significant for countries in the Baltic, Serbia, Slovakia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Spain all of which have demonstrated strong interest in Cyprus and we thank them for that.

As far as Tourism of proximity remains the key for Cyprus, long distance destinations such as the USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and even Russia have yet to recuperate and maintain their lagging spots from the cumulative data of 2010 (Jan-Oct) compared to 2009.  So for these countries, if 2009 was a bad year, 2010 is definitely worse.  To which we may add and highlight that  Israel, Lebanon and Russia also join the group of countries for which outbound tourism to Cyprus in 2010 have seen maintained themselves in negative growth, although it may be too early to judge  how and what role have diplomacy played in the influence on Travel statistics.

Cyprus Airways and Eurocypria puts Cyprus Tourism in checkmate

The bankruptcy of Eurocypria Airlines and the more than possible bankruptcy of Cyprus Airways put Cyprus Tourism in checkmate. According to the Minister of Finance Charilaos Stavrakis, talking to the control committee of the Cypriot Parliament, Cyprus airways is heading the same way of Eurocypria. The Minister mentioned that if Cyprus airways is not able to return to profits it will have to close in 18 months from today.

In my opinion the structure and the political backstage of Cyprus airways does not allow to the company to operate with profits. High salaries, high overheads, and the fact that the company is the carrier of political backstage gives all the necessary ingredients to the airline to crash financially in a very short period of time. Cyprus as a tourist destination depends only on air transport. Despite that a huge investment was made by Hermes Airports to upgrade the airport services and put Cyprus back in the international airport map, the destination suffers from low competiveness and total dependency on tour operation.

There is very small margin of manoeuvre and the stakeholders of Cyprus tourism are fed up with the policies followed the past years. The Cyprus Tourism Organisation has started preparing a new Strategic Plan which now they will need to throw in the bin since it was based on the fact that Cyprus will have 2 airlines, one charter and another scheduled. Now the panorama is different. Now we are more than sure that the 2 airlines will have to close down and probably pass their flights to other foreign airlines.

The problem gets bigger since there are no guarantees that Cyprus as a country can sustain a new state made airline. Cypriot investors and travel stakeholders have no support for the Cypriot Banking System in order to put together a fast operation and recover the slots and the routes of the two airlines. According to all indications 2011 summer season will be the hardest tourism season of Cyprus. All the bookings and tentative bookings to hotels need an airline to transfer them; the unsecure future of Cyprus airways will defiantly push the UK and other European Tour Operators to redirect tourism traffic to other Mediterranean destinations.

Looking at this panorama, the only solution I can personally see is that the Cypriots stakeholders will need to make a move towards foreign investment. Search for a long term strategic investor who will undertake the risk to invest and turn Cyprus airports to a regional hub, investors from Greece or the Middle East who are interested in diversification of their investments. At the same time the destination will need to finally convert itself into a destination that does not depend on tour operators but co-exists with them in new tourism environment. Here the role of Hermes Airports is crucial and I am sure they understand it.

Hello Ryan, goodbye Cyprus Airlines

Does the future of Cyprus Travel industry lie in its bricks and not its services;  not in its airlines but in its airports?

Success to the Hermes Airports’ Incentive Scheme has finally given its prized compensation. The festive mood at the Larnaka Airport on November 3rd played well with Cyprus hosting to a new guest for Cyprus Tourism called Ryanair. The significance of the moment may be less about the window of opportunity by having Ryanair landing, it may actually mark the end of a presumptuous Chapter in air travel for Cyprus tourism. 

As much as we would like to join the enthusiasm and wild speculations of the new opportunities, reading through the lines of the expressions of satisfaction by Ms Melissa Corrigan, Ryanair Sales and advertising manager in Cyprus, "We are delighted to inaugurate our first route from Larnaka, and bring really low fares to Cyprus for the first time. Ryanair will continue to grow as other airlines pull routes and reduce capacity whilst incurring significant losses", we can't reconcile this satisfaction when coupled with the way trade and customer agreements are being compromised by governmental decision-making behind the Cyprus Airline merger scheme.

 As business is business, the plight of 1.230 employees from both airlines which will have to be relocated, the international trade agreements with travel counterparts, the implication of the Hotel, Travel agent Associations, the established air and route connections, the winter season and current customers stranded from strikes at EuroCypria.  How can we be comforted by Ryanair's arrival to Cyprus, with its renowned reputation for low cost transportation system and an absolute negation to customer service. This same lack of regard seems to be inherent to the government handling of the scandal and shortsightedness of past administrations that were responsible for the growth and planning of Airline companies at the expense and privilege of using them for political ends.  

Welcome to the end of the era of national airlines. Their role and serving need has come to past, and more so with current markets dynamics for which neither airlines were prepared for. Times have indeed changed,and state imperatives can no longer perpetuate services that escape the logic of commerce, customer appreciation and accountability;  in the words sung by a famous troubadour, " you can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all of the time".

We would like to extend our most hearten Welcome to Mr. Ryan and his company which will expect to carry up 60,000 passengers annually and maintain 60 jobs in Cyprus. We hope that this welcome be least affected by the tensions and the apparent lack of coordinated plans which have kept the unions, the parliament and agencies without a clue on how European union will accept the new contingency plan for keeping the Mouflons and competitiveness flying in Cyprus.

How can Social Media make money for the travel industry?

The debate about the ROI in implementing Social Media in a business has been going on for quite a long time now.  While experts and not so experts struggle to prove that Social Media can make money the different industry leaders do not seen so convinced.

I have been intensively working in the world of Social Media in the travel industry for the last two years and I can assure you that it is a very hard job to prove the profitability of Social Media. The reason is not because is not possible to increase sales “going social” but due to the traditional business practices that have never included Customer Service (offline) to the traditional sales funnel.

Travel stakeholders prefer to go ahead pay per click campaigns and SEO that bring them direct traffic to their sites instead of implementing a time consuming strategy that will eventually give them online reputation, especially when it comes to intermediates that get their money from mass production of room nights and air tickets. Visiblity in he Social Media sphere is indirect and subtle, peer to peer means lost of control and this creates panic to the boards of directors of the big tour operators.

Now, six years after the internet went social tour operators realise that they need to change, they need to change fast and catch their customers  they need to focus on customer care before, during and after the sale. Simple email follow-up and reviews are not enough anymore. The end user wants to be pampered and bombarded; the end user demands specialization and destination insights. Openness and authenticity are the most valued content components from the end user, therefore email shots and maniac Twitting is controversial.  

The only valid path for the travel industry is to recreate its brand strategy around social media and its components, aggregate users’ content and via conversations and engagement convert them into advocates. This can only be achieved with professional help and domination of insights.

If we now look at destinations like Cyprus, where tourism is the steam engine of the economy and where the global financial crisis has crashed travel traffic dramatically, the local travel stakeholders need to make the move quickly. The “fear” of digital is present but I can assure you that “risky” travel business men and women are getting professional coaching and they are convinced that they can achieve  sales growth even now in the most abyss depths of crisis.

The ball has started to roll 2 years ago during the E-Tourism Forum Cyprus.