Cyprus tourist arrivals slump nine per cent

The number of tourists arriving in the Mediterranean holiday island of Cyprus dipped 8.9 per cent in the first five months of this year, official figures showed on Monday.

Between January and May tourist arrivals reached 622,070 compared to 682,614 in the same period last year.

During last month alone, arrivals reached 246,546 against 271,559 holidaymakers in May last year, recording a sizeable year-on-year decrease of 9.2 per cent.

There was a 7.5 percent decline in arrivals from Britain (130,154) - the island's biggest holiday market - a steeper decreases from Sweden at 12.8 per cent and a smaller four per cent dip from Russia last month.

The government estimates that arrivals will be down by 10 per cent this year and to help ease the crisis it has urged Cypriots to holiday at home by offering subsidised hotel stays for lower income groups.

A large majority of the island's tourists come from recession-hit EU countries, which have been gripped by recession.

Total tourism receipts for last year dropped by 3.5 per cent to €1.79 billion from €1.85 billion.

Bumper tourism revenues helped the island achieve GDP growth of 4.4 per cent in 2007 and 3.7 per cent for last year.

Due to concerns the global financial crisis will trigger lower tourism revenues the finance ministry revised its GDP growth to between one and two per cent.

Cyprus central bank governor Athanasios Orphanides said that based on revised data and a more "negative external environment" the island's GDP growth would be restricted to 0.4 per cent this year.

This would improve to 0.7 per cent next year, he said.

The European Commission estimates the island's GDP growth to be around 0.3 per cent making it the only eurozone country to register positive growth this year.

Last year tourist arrivals declined 0.5 per cent to 2.40 million tourists down from 2.41 million a year earlier.

It was only the fourth time year-on-year tourism numbers have dropped since 1996 and hotel bookings are said to be around 20 per cent down for this summer.

Tourism contributes around 12 per cent to the island's GDP.