This year’s tourist bookings are expected to remain at approximately the same levels as in 2024, the head of the Paphos Hoteliers Association, Evripides Loizides, said on Wednesday. He added that seasonal tourism was gradually becoming a thing of the past.

Pre-bookings from November 2024 to January 2025 showed a 7-10 per cent increase for the summer. However, from February onwards, overall pre-bookings across the island slowed significantly, though Paphos recorded a marginal increase, Loizides said.

The island’s tourism sector depends largely on visitors from the United Kingdom, Israel, Poland, Greece, Germany and France.

“The economic crisis has started to have a serious impact,” he told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA).

While total bookings are expected to remain stable compared to 2024, the average holiday duration is becoming shorter – seven days instead of ten in 2019.

Loizides noted that seasonality, the limitation of tourism primarily to the summer months, had long been a challenge but was now disappearing.

“For Paphos, it is only a matter of time before the sector moves away from seasonality,” he said, highlighting that both in 2024 and this year, 10,000 beds were already booked during the winter season.

Regarding staffing, Loizides said the issue of shortages had been addressed through permits for hiring foreign workers, though he stressed the need to speed up the process. Many Cypriots, he noted, are leaving the tourism industry for year-round jobs in other sectors.

He also estimated that one-third of visitors to the island are staying in registered or illegal Airbnb-type accommodations and urged district governments to crack down on unlicensed rentals.