Cyprus tourism has had a good year. That is, it has had a good year from the point of view of volume. Currently 1999 will be a record year from the UK with well over 1m arrivals.
Hoteliers may well have had a bumper season, but I don’t think tour operators have. There has been too much capacity and, as a result, discounting has been heavy. I know of people who have paid £49 for a one week self-catering holiday. Cheap tourism has flooded Cyprus this year. They need it to fill all the beds they have built.
I don’t approve or agree with Government policy but, for the likes of First Choice, Thomson, Airtours, Sunworld, Golden Sun and Priceright the conditions have been ideal.
All-inclusive, downmarket hotel packages are all the rage and everyone seems to be having a good time. Ayia Napa has taken over from Ibiza as the premier clubbers’ destination.
They’ve all piled into the self-catering villa market too. Something Special, a Thomson direct-sell subsidiary, is moving in a big way. Meon is here and, of course, Sunworld and First Choice are taking on everything in sight. I understand Style is also joining in for 2000. Some of the quality is now dubious with the standard of villas rapidly declining. There are many Spain/Portugal villa development-type properties set on postage stamp plots with small pools. Privacy is minimal but, in brochure photographs, all villas with pool look much the same and photographs captioned “typical villa” appear all too often in mainstream brochures.
Illegal operations are everywhere, with taxis meeting clients who have booked private villas through the Internet and UK newspaper adverts, yet the Cyprus Tourist Office does nothing to get to the root of the problem.
Either it should allow the whole market to go free or should enforce its laws.
However, it seems that the whole of Cyprus only cares about one thing and that is the performance of the stock market. Shares have gone through the roof. Normally, daily turnover has been at around £10m but, over the past three months, gold fever has gripped the Cypriots. On Monday all records were broken when the £100m for the day was passed. Cypriots do nothing else but talk of the rise in share prices. Work just seems to have stopped as all and sundry watch TV or listen to the radio for the latest share prices. Bank shares have gone up as much as 10 times over the past four months and many new millionaires have been created.
Companies that shouldn’t even be quoted have shot up in value. The market is being willed on by individuals who shout at the screens in the stock exchange in much the same way as they would shout on a racecourse. There is still no casino on Cyprus, but who needs one now? When the crash comes, because sooner or later it will, then many naive people, who cannot afford to take the loss, will lose much hard-needed cash.
For the moment, Cypriots believe that shares can only go one way and that is up. As long as they keep on believing this then up they will keep on going, even for Mickey Mouse companies, of which there are several.