From Cyprus Airways to Cyprus Far-aways

Cyprus Airways made finally the big step. They confront the crisis by letting customers without flights!!! They have unilaterally and without any notice cancelled the only flight from Pafos Airport to Athens. What that is actually mean. It means that all the Cypriots who live in the area of Paphos including Limassol (more than 200,000) in order to fly to Athens need to go to Larnaca Airport. Larnaca Airport is small, old and 1h20min drive from Paphos and 1 hour from Limassol. Pafos Airport is only 30 mins drive from Limassol and 15 from any point in Pafos. Now, this means more expense on fuel for the passengers since they have to drive to Larnaca, more environmental impact and more uncomfortable situations form some hundreds of travellers and some hundreds of students. The flights to Paphos were always full. I have personally taken this flight 3 times in the past 6 months and members of my family approximately 10 times and it has always been more than 80%.

Well as from today Cyprus airways looks to me as Cyprus far-aways . They are monopoly, government owned and run, they are the main reason why other airlines do not land in Cyprus and all these makes them champions of Tourism Killers. The passengers from Greece increase and they decrease flights. So as a conclusion I ask Aegean Airlines to bid for Cyprus Far-aways, I ask Lufthansa Group to take over the airline and develop its potential since the local management are incapable to see opportunities and develop locally.

I suggest that we protect ourselves from this kind of companies that make life harder, economy worse and at the same time stop progress. Welcome Stelios … welcome easyjet … see here for more details, welcome freedom.

Cyprus Tourism Synergies

I must say that the 18th and the 19th of February have been the most intense days of my life after the birth of my twins.

I have had the privilege to share conference panel with the most distinguished e-Marketing specialists in the world. Dr. Natasa Christodoulides, Gerd Leonhard, Richard Sedley, Ged Carroll, Andrew Gordon, John Horsley, Theodore Koumelis and the statistics brain of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation Constantinos Chappas.

Thank you Natasha for your methodology and level of information, Gerd for your vision and charm of the masses , Richard for your persuasion and artistic vein, Andrew for your humour and your fantastic realistic approaches, Ged for your online “honesty”. Thank you Theodore for landing the Emergence2009 flight smoothly, John for making us see that networking is social, Constandinos for showing us the bright side of the crisis. Special thanks to my colleague Patrick for standing me for 3 weeks and for being the master mind of www.emergence2009.com , last but not least, thank you Alex for being there observing the event and later giving me your wisdom and vision of the market oportunities.

I would also like to thank the whole industry of Cyprus that without them this event would not have been possible. Thanks to all the travel agents, hoteliers, guides, technology companies, and all the rest who understood that the world is now googleable and that facebooking brings real people close.

Hasta la vista …

Let's go to Cyprus for Holidays

The annual conference of the Cyprus Hotel Association was this year really interesting.

We had the opportunity to hear how Thomas Cook and Thomson Holidays - TUI Group asked publicly the hoteliers of Cyprus to lower their prices even more so those two companies would be able to help the Cypriot Hotelier. Well I think is time to see reality. Thomas Cook and TUI Group are profitable organisations who are asking us to lose money so they make money because they drive tourist traffic in Cyprus. My question is do we really need them?

I ask the hoteliers to wake up and see that their hotels in Cyprus the only thing they need is to forget about the intermediates and go for the end user alone. This can only be achieved on-line. There are more than 20,000,000 (twenty million) travellers that plan their travel online every week. How much would the Cyprus Tourism Organisation would pay to have a slice of this pie? How much would the hotels invest to have their finger in this honey pot?

With this opportunity I would like to thank Dr. Dimitry Shevchenko for his clear vision and his real support to Cyprus as destination, also I would like to ask Mr. Jez Clarke to be more honest to the hoteliers (According to this customer Thomoson Holidays is selling excursions to "North Cyprus",) as well as Mr. Len Mina to look back and see the history and learn from it. Thomas Cook is recommednding the undiscovered noth of Cyprus.

Both tour operators thanked the Cyprus Tourism Organisation for the support in their marketing campaigns to bring tourist to Cyprus. This support I assume is not moral but monetary.

Last but not least, I would like to ask for our politicians to care more and care with real care for the industry and not use the name of the Cyprus Tourism industry to gain local impressions.

Thanks for your time and I really appreciate your loyalty reading this blog.