Cyprus successfully managed the recent tourism crisis as a country, thanks to strong cooperation between the public and private sectors, Deputy Tourism Minister Costas Koumis said, noting that the overall decline in the first seven months of 2026 had fallen to 8%, a sign that the downturn was now easing.
The year is expected to close with a decline of around 5%.
Koumis took part in a meeting between the Cyprus Hotel Managers Association (ETAP), the Cyprus Association of Tourist Enterprises (PASYXE) Limassol, and local authorities, at which the challenges and prospects for the tourism product of the city and district of Limassol were discussed.
In comments to reporters, he said that “nothing is achieved in tourism without excellent cooperation between the public and private sectors,” adding that “we all bear responsibility for ensuring tourism functions properly and efficiently, and for keeping our country a competitive destination.”
This year, he continued, Cyprus had been called on to manage a major crisis. “Enough time has now passed that we can speak about it freely. As a country, we managed the crisis successfully, precisely because we had good cooperation with the private sector.”
He said that officials had tracked the scale of the problem as it unfolded, including thousands of cancellations and a freeze in bookings, and that each update was followed by a set of actions. He noted that not every country — including some that had been hit less hard than Cyprus — had managed to handle the crisis in quite the same way.
