By Jean Christou
CYPRUS has everything it needs to become a competitive tourist destination but is being let down by its lackadaisical business environment, dearth of eco policies, low air accessibility to an extent, and its failure to promote its natural and cultural heritage as much as it could, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.
The Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), published every two years, shows that while Cyprus ranks second to Austria out of 141 countries worldwide in terms of its tourism services infrastructure, and quite high on several aspects, it falls sharply down the list in a number of other areas.
This balancing out of the negative and positive leaves the island ranked 36 in terms of the competitiveness of its tourism, just behind Thailand and just in front of the Czech Republic. Spain topped global rankings for the first time, followed by France, Germany, the US, UK, Switzerland, Australia, Italy, Japan and Canada.
The index takes into account a country’s tourism infrastructure, price competitiveness, safety and security, health and hygiene, human resources, IT capabilities, air transport, ground infrastructure, environmental sustainability, natural and cultural resources, and business environment.
In the latter category, Cyprus was ranked 43 out of 141 countries, just behind Morocco and just in front of Kazakhstan. The category included property rights, foreign direct investment and tax regimes. It was in a subsection of this category that Cyprus scored its worst position – 141st out of 141 – for the length of time it takes to secure a construction permit to build a warehouse.
While the number of days ranged from 26 in Singapore – the top of the list – to 448 days in Zimbabwe, and with Cambodia slumping at 622 days, Cyprus came in at a mind-boggling 677 days simply to secure a warehouse licence. TTCI researchers said they used the sub category as an indicator to determine “the efficiency and productivity of a country”, saying the cost and time necessary to deal with construction permits was a particularly relevant issue for tourism and travel development.
Cyprus also scored low on environmental sustainability coming in 83rd place behind Cameroon, Mozambique, Honduras and Chad. Though tourism’s own sustainability was higher at 25, ratings for stringency of regulations and enforcement, dragged the overall ranking down.
“The importance of the natural environment for providing an attractive location for tourism cannot be overstated, so policies and factors enhancing environmental sustainability are an important competitive advantage in ensuring a country’s future attractiveness as a destination,” said the report.
For price competitiveness, Cyprus ranked 111 on a sliding scale that placed Iran and Egypt at the top and Switzerland and the UK at the bottom. Cyprus proved to be more price competitive than most EU countries bar Spain, Portugal and Malta, all major tourism competitors.
Among the aspects taken into account are airfare ticket taxes and airport charges, the relative cost of hotel accommodation, the cost of living, proxied by purchasing power parity, and fuel price costs.
The island came third globally for the priority given to tourism. Malta was first and Mauritius second. It also scored well on safety and security at 27th, human resources 20th, but 51st for health and hygiene, and 23rd for ground infrastructure such as road networks. For the quality of electricity supply Cyprus was ranked 43rd. It’s air transport network placed Cyprus in 46th place.
Tourist services infrastructure was, however, ranked second globally. This category included the number of hotels per capita, banking facilities and the presence of major car rental companies, for which it achieved a number one spot with other developed destinations. Government expenditure on tourism also ranked high, as did the effectiveness of tourism marketing.
In the same category, the island then plunges to 69th place in terms of its brand strategy, indicating that while almost everything is in place to ensure a more successful tourism industry, Cyprus has failed to adequately build on its strengths.
For instance, the island does not have a single World Heritage natural site, and only three World Heritage cultural sites, compared to Italy’s 46, Spain’s 40 and France’s 36.
Commenting on the report, Zacharias Ioannides, Director General of the Cyprus Hotel Association (PASYXE) agreed with the report’s contents that much more needed to be done to promote the island’s rich cultural heritage and history. This was one of the issues being discussed as part of a new strategic plan to re-position Cyprus, along with working on the ‘brand strategy’, he said.
“Cyprus’ rich history and culture is not being projected so effectively so far,” he said. “More work needs to be done.”
Ioannides, who has studied the TTCI report, said it was an objective view of the industry.
“It definitely showed our strengths and our weaknesses,” he said, adding that it had shown Cyprus was a safe destination with good infrastructure. “On the other hand, it showed that there is room for improvement especially on such things as the regulatory framework and on licences and permits as well as air accessibility,” he said.
Cyprus Tourism Organisation chairman Angelos Loizou agreed that Cyprus rated well on some aspects and not on others. However, he said Cyprus was not failing when it came to regulations or laws or infrastructure. In fact, the island was number one on the European Travel Council’s list for arrivals per capita, income per inhabitant from tourism and in employment in the industry, he said.
Any failings in the industry were down to “mentality”, Loizou said, adding that the most important factor in tourism was service. “It is service that counts,” he said. “Service will enhance income.”
Many in the industry were still pursuing a quick profit rather than sustainability, Loizou said, and if foreign investment was lacking it was down to mentality, not a dearth of regulations.
“It is our mentality that does not attract foreign investment,” he said. “That is why we do not see change.”
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