Death on ‘A corner of earth touched by heaven’ - Mother dies on a five star holiday to Cyprus

An online site promoting Northern Cyprus describes the area as being ‘A corner of earth touched by heaven’. In describing the locals the effusive copy tells us that the ‘Cypriot people are always cheerful, calm and hospitable’.  Sounds inviting doesn’t it? ....Of course it is, especially for those folk currently entombed in rain soaked Britain who haven’t seen the sun for months and who ache to go on holiday.

Fine.. I have no problem with that except that one has always got to counter the ‘cute copy’ used by these travel people and remind ourselves occasionally that this ‘corner of earth’ was also touched by bloodshed after the illegal invasion by the Turkish army in 1974, and one has to seriously doubt if there is to be found a genuinely ‘cheerful, calm, and hospitable Cypriot currently living in the occupied North, after they had their homes and businesses taken from them by the occupying forces.

But leaving that aside for the moment, one must stop and wonder at what tourists expect and receive from a holiday in the north, yes... they have fine hotels the majority having been taken from their rightful owners and turned over to Turkish migrants to run. No doubt the Turkish government told these migrants that they were going to go and live in a ‘corner of the earth touched by heaven’ and so they were sent over to the Occupied North to populate and run the north as part of the Turkish state.

This is where we now come to several difficulties as these probably well meaning family folk and workers did indeed work hard to make a livelihood they renovated the hotels and so set themselves up as hoteliers.

The key here is no one recognises within the EU the illegal state of “Northern Cyprus”  so tourists finding themselves attracted to cheaper prices than in southern Cyprus (the legally owned part of the island) can and do find themselves in trouble. The tragic case last year of the Englishwoman who stayed with her partner at a five star hotel only to die there after drinking from a water bottle containing cleaning fluid, left there by accident on a bedside table by the maid after she had cleaned the couples room.

A terrible thing to happen in this corner of earth and her partner will now have no end of trouble if he tries to pursue for compensation against the management of the hotel.

The legitimate and mercifully professional part of this island has strict hotel training systems in place which would disallow the potential for this sort of accident occurring. The legitimate Cyprus may well be a bit more expensive than the illegally occupied North but here you do have rights and are fully covered by EU laws.

Much has been said and done about the ‘Cyprus Problem’ what we should be doing is ensuring our tourists are safe no matter where they holiday on this island, we should continue to find ways to offer inclusivity towards the Turkish Cypriots,  something we are doing from this side of the island for many years now by organising day trips for visitors to the occupied north under the legal shield the UN via the Cyprus Green Line Agreement. What we don’t want is for the northern corner ‘touched by heaven’ to become a danger death zone for foreign tourists, here-we cannot afford to have headlines in the Daily Mail newspaper that scream ‘Mother dies on a five star holiday to Cyprus’.

For many tourists Cyprus is Cyprus -whether it’s Northern or Southern, most don’t actually care about what happened 38 years ago that caused this separation of the country, they see the prices and go.yes it’s hot there and they have great beaches... book it!

Unless we can all work together under EU legality in tourism to better our products and make safe our visitors then we will continue to receive fallout from the somewhat lack lustre capabilities currently being promoted within that ‘corner of earth touched by heaven’.

Cyprus Tourism pampering local business, 132 Cyprus Hotels offer special rates for locals

For the past few years the local market gained more weight for the Cypriot hotel occupancies. Cypriots travel abroad a lot but also stay in Cyprus a lot. According to Cyprus tourism Organisation the local market produces approximately 1,500,000 (one and a half million) bed nights to the Cypriot hotels and accommodation establishments. This converts Cypriots to the 2nd biggest tourism market for Cyprus after the UK market.

It was once when Cypriots were an insignificant market share, those times are gone, today, the 1.5 million overnights, means a lot to the local hotel industry and especially this year the Cyprus Hotel Association gave a bigger emphasis to the packages offered from its members to the local consumer.

This initiative is supported by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation, the Bank of Cyprus (American Express Credit Cards).

The offer includes 132 hotels in all the tourist areas of Cyprus and you can see the entire offer here below.

Open publication - Free publishing - More cyprus hotels

How could Cyprus Hotels could take advantage of OTAs ( Online Travel Agents)

Viewing today the video on VTV Channel with the interview of Dr. Chris Anderson from Cornell University , I have realised that many of the indications he mentions could be applied to Cyprus as well.

Of course we need to have in mind that the so called dot com brands in Cyprus do not really exist. Cyprus tourism industry is formed mainly by independent hotels that do not belong to international chains. Now this happens it will be our subject for an other post on this blog.

Coming back to Dr. Anderson’s recommendations. Cyprus tourism has been traditionally depending on Travel Agents and Tour Operators. The online revolution is still making its way to Cyprus mainly because of the denial of the Cypriot tourism professional to change his/her marketing habits. In this path of unchanged change the recommendations of Dr. Anderson could fit and be more understandable for the average Cypriot hotelier.

The problem here is that the local travel agent, incoming agent is still wondering what to do online, he is still using old booking engines with no flexibility and without any benefit to the end user. We will not talk about the complete absence of any type of Social Media strategy. So first of all the local incoming agents need to understand how web and especially web 2.0 works and how an offline Travel Agent can become a successful online agent. Here is essential the participation of all the actors like Tour guides, theme park owners, excursion makers and yes the strong support from the local tourist authorities who can bring in tangible travel content.

Anyway pay attention to the video and make your own conclusions and if you are a Cypriot travel agent or a Cypriot hotelier I am sure you will find things here that are applicable to your daily work. In Cyprus we have at this moment a huge gap that is filled by the big players from the UK. So think and act.

How hotels can get out of The Crisis!!

Can hotels get out of the crisis? Well this crisis is not only about hotels its about all tourism. The reality is very hard for those millions of unemployed people of tourism worldwide. Well we cannot get out of crisis if we continue firing 50% of our human assets; we cannot get out of crisis if we keep reducing the only recourse that makes our industry o be personal.

If hotels do not stop firing people then they will end being cheaper to stay than home. The problem will be when hotels will want to raise prices again after in 2011 or 2012 or 2015 when the crisis will be over. Hoteliers will beg repeat customers not to come back, the pressure of guests will be so big that many hoteliers will change work. Come on lets get a bit serious now.
If you are a serious hotelier then what you should do is.

1. Do not fire 50% of your staff so you make sure your quality is still high and your services are up to your guest’s standards.
2. Do not lower your prices. Do not touch your room rate. Please do not panic. This crisis is an earthquake, and during an earthquake the ones who survive are the ones who know how to react with calm.
3. Give more value to your guests’ money by offering more services for less money.
  a. Include the bloody wifi internet connection to your rate.
  b. Make breakfast hours longer.
  c. Offer 3 types of eggs on the breakfast buffet.
  d. Change that plastic taste orange colour liquid with real orange juice.
  e. Offer room service WITHOUT extra charge.
  f. Make your restaurant food unique so as your guest will think of you first when going out for dinner .
  g. Let your guest invite a friend or 2 for breakfast without charging extra.

There are so many things you can do before putting your “pants” down but actually the first thing you have to is to come closer to your customer. Turn your customer to your guest and this today is possible if you are able to use the vast social media sphere in a non abusive and guest friendly manner. Get in your guest’s shoes and see your hotel from through your guest’s eyes online. Use the Online Marketing tools wisely to market your hotel.

Disintermediate your sales process as much as you can and use those agents and tour operators that transfer price and value benefits directly to the end user.

Use your imagination and creativity and your hotel will come out of crisis stronger and you will be wiser at the end.

Hey do not take me wrong. Many of the ideas above are not only mine. The President of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association Dr. Ghassan AIDI shares many of those ideas as well, he shared them with Cypriot Hoteliers at the Cyprus Hotel Association 2010 Congress.

The Choice of Expedia

I would like to thank Max Starkov for bringing up the courageous decision of Choice hotels to leave the conversations with Expedia.

Yes finally we have a big player in accommodation supply to stand up and protest actively against the “Market Dictatorship” of a portal that acts as hotel rooms online are of its property.

We keep experiencing this same authoritarian approach by wholesalers, even now after the appearance of the internet. Hoteliers in coastal resorts and especially in the Mediterranean, are under the “boot” of the tour operators. In Cyprus, due to the flight “embargo” imposed for so many years by the State of Cyprus  its through its Flying Department,  Cyprus Airways,  we suffer by what we can call  Tour Operator Stockholm Syndrome.  Big and small Tour Operators have found the perfect ground in Cyprus so as to have the last word on pricing and availabilities.

Choice Hotels is an example of a non homogeneous group of hotels that has put the interest of their owners above all other priorities. Sharing interests today is a virtue, but sharing them and making common actions in Cyprus is impossible.

In a meeting I assisted recently with tourism businessmen in the chamber of Commerce I have noticed that the interests are not shared. The tourism entrepreneurs are divided and do not share the same objectives and goals. Some think about today, some think about tomorrow some others about 2010 and many are simply pessimists that tourism industry has reached its end.

Well here I need to say that if we keep suffering in silence our “Stockholm Syndrome” then for sure we will loose the only recourse we have left on this island.

I am wondering if hoteliers, and especially the independent ones, will soon wake up and with one united voice take strategic actions and recover the lost ground.  I am wondering if we will stand up and ask for real flight freedom, I am wondering if will stand up and ask for accesible towns, I am wondering if will stand up and demand more funds Technology and Internet applications, I am wondering if we will stand up and claim the abolition of "Taxi Dictatorship" and invest in honest public transport.

Change is hard and painful but defiantly is the only way to achieve profitable numbers and quality. We are looking into change as a thread in Cyprus, we always did, now is time to see it as opportunity.

Illegal operation of Libra Holidays in Cyprus

Libra Accommodations CY LTD, the company that signed accommodation contacts with Cypriot Hoteliers was operating illegally in Cyprus.

After the court case P.C Mavros Vs Libra in Cyprus (Paphos District Court (case number 3806/07) dated 26 Nov. 2008 9 the vale was uncovered. According to the Cypriot Registrar of Companies, Libra Accommodations (CY) LTD with Directors among others Mr. Adreas Drakou (known as managing director of the fatal Helios Airways ) , Mr. Themis Drakou , Mr. Adreas Koumis (who resigned the 13th of March 2007), Mr. Theodoros Antoniou (who also resigned the 20th of June 2007) was formed as a company the 17th of February 2000. This company has since then signed various accommodation contacts with various hotels in the Republic of Cyprus but they NEVER had an operating licence on the island. The Cyprus Tourism Organisation has never given this company a licence to operate as an incoming travel agent and therefore Libra Accommodations CY Ltd has never been a proper, legal tour operator or travel agent with licence to bring tourist in Cyprus.

In 2007 Libra stop paying many hoteliers among others the small hotel Apollo Hill in Pafos. After long discussions and negotiations Apollo Hill operated by a family company ( P.C. Mavros and Sons LTD) took the case to the court and on the 26th of November 2008 the court decided against Libra. When the civil servants of the court went to Libra offices in Limassol, they discover that the company had nothing at all as moveable of fixed assets, neither any cash to fulfil the decision of the court.

P.C. Mavros and Sons LTD has contacted the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) offices in order to claim the bank guarantee all agents deposit according to the law. It was then when the owner of P.C. Mavros and sons LTD discovered that Libra did not even requested an operating licence.

As a conclusion we can say that Libra Holidays that is the mother company of Libra Accommodations has been operating since the year 2000 (for 9 years until today) illegally in Cyprus.

Picture Above: From left to the right:

Mr. Photis Photiou (President of CTO in 2005), Mr. Andreas Drakou (Managing Director of Libra Holidays Group), Akis Kyprianou (Executive Director of Libra Holidays Group- in 2005 who resigned in 2007).

Libra Holidays Press Release

Tourism e-accessibility and e-inclusion, a niche loyal maket is forgotten

In their effort to find niche markets, the tourist destinations have finally realised that disabled people constitute an advanced market with advanced needs and lot of perspectives; a market that belongs among the most loyal groups of clients. Let’s not forget that Europe is getting older and the obligations of the countries members of the European Union (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/index_en.htm) increase, therefore more and more opportunities are given to the disabled individuals to travel under the same circumstances as the rest of the citizens.

The journey starts from their house, from their personal computer, usually by searching Google. However, as Abbott (2001) argues, even though internet provides opportunities of democratization of society through freedom of expression, sometimes of even radical opinions, it is still predominated by websites which usually reverberate the dominant ideology and stereotypes, or it is rich in advertising websites which rarely consider disabled individuals as a remarkable market. Therefore, the trip of a person with disabilities is mandatorily continued only on those websites of suppliers or tourist services which can cover their first need of accessibility, by following the various protocols of accessibility for the web design and content, like the ones developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, known as W3C.

Most of the Cypriot and Greek websites of the big tourist enterprises do not meet those criteria and therefore are not accessible, also evidenced by the research of Zafiris and Zacharias (2001 and 2003). The high importance given on the artistic design and not on the usability and accessibility of a website, lefts disabled individuals out of the online marketing. To avoid any possible misunderstandings, at this point we need mention that most of the criteria defined by W3C are easy to achieve, since clear guidelines are given. Those criteria do not necessarily deprive the artistic design of a site. On the contrary, they strengthen good design and facilitate the designer to avoid any possible excesses and mistakes which without realizing may affect the success of the website. The various accessibility protocols include special design guidelines of the web material with regards to accessibility for particular disabilities (e.g visual disability, motor disabilities, etc.) but at the same time include general instructions as to the usability of the website, its readability, the content presentation, the search engines, the easy and well understood reservation systems, like www.sybelio.com, and many more, which contribute in the creation of a human oriented website, which is easily accessible to every citizen of the modern society. Research findings have shown that the accessible design of a website can increase at least 10% the number of the people visiting the website.

If the tourist enterprises of Greece and Cyprus want to attract, and please allow us to repeat here the word want, an inclusive market which doesn’t exclude disability, they should not only build ramps next to the staircases, or create rooms with special equipment, and doors suitable for wheelchairs etc., but they should also give the possibilityof accessibility next to their well designed websites, so that online material, advertising and information will be appropriate and accessible to people with for visual, hearing, motor and learning disabilities, etc. Everybody has the right and we have the obligation to offer exactly the same and equal services we offer to the rest of the community.

The website accessibility should belong in the same legal framework as the physical accessibility. If one organisation offers internet services to the public, the legislation should have enforced it to offer the same services in accessible websites, as has already started in a number of European and other countries with the guidelines of Universal Design.

If Greece and Cyprus become leading markets through accessible internet and offer their tourist services in accessible websites, and this is well advertised, then we “endanger” to become accessible destinations. After all, the conviction of the European Union is that by 2010 all the public websites to become accessible then why not all the tourist websites, too? Of course it is not enough our websites to be accessible. We are obliged to have our towns, villages, beaches and mountain resorts accessible and inclusive, and this is only achieved though real and feasible human oriented plans and strong political decisions by the local authorities, decisions that can be materialized quickly.

My recent experience, in teaching an e-commerce course to 10 young people with hearing disabilities, under the Synergia Programme of the European Union, has confirmed the many opportunities those people have in online marketing.

The role of the Professional Tourist Associations in attracting new tourists online

Cyprus with the two Hotel Associations, Pasyxe (www.cyprushotelassociation.org) and Stek (www.acte.com.cy )is another tourist destination where the two Associations have no presence concerning online Sales & Marketing. Their static websites which promote the activities and objectives are definitely not adequate for the development of any online strategy.

The financial dependence of the members of theAssociations upon the big Tour Operators “scares” their Governing Boards to take “courageous” decisions towards making serious steps online in order to seduce the end user.

Cost is not a matter, and the Associations know that. The websites that are officially managed by
the Associations should be the ones that inspire travel and I bring as an example the exquisite websites of the Hoteliers Association of Barcelona, Spain, www.barcelonahotels.es, the website of the Association of Small Hotels of Playa del Carmen in Mexico, www.hotelesplayadelcarmen.com , the Hoteliers Association of Costa Daurada in Catalonia, www.costadaurada.travel , the website of the Hoteliers Association in Bermuda, www.experiencebermuda.com and the so called “Association ofTurkish Cypriot Hoteliers” , www.northcyprus.net that also has a decent presence on the web.

The breakdown into regional Associations, as it happens in Pafos, gives the capability to upsell the hotels and tourist products locally. This up-selling should already be upgraded since the formation of the Regional Boards of Tourism, but unfortunately this does not happen yet. Taking as an example the Pafos Hoteliers Association, www.pafoshoteliers.com , we very quickly realise that the site is Palaeolithic. It has been built 9 years ago and is based on ancient technologies and is almost impossible to make a booking in any of the hotels listed on their online booking system.

The site is organically positioned due to its content and comes up in the first page in Google with the keywords “Hotels in Pafos”. For this reason the site receives more than 70,000 unique visitors a year (approximately 192 per day) out of which 70% are from the United Kingdom. Translating this into real money we find that the site loses approximately 2000 bookings a year of an average of 6 overnights which means 24,000 bed nights. Calculating that each overnight spends 50,00 Euro per person per day (considering collateral expenses not only accommodation of “cheap web attracted customers”) then we find out that 1,200,000 Euros do not fall into the cash registries of the Tourist Enterprises from direct customers only in Pafos the
last year.

At the Limassol Hoteliers Association (www.limassol-hotels.com) thesituation cannot be described as anything else but as an online tragedy, since they still list hotels which have been converted into offices and apartments for some years now.

The question now is, what is the role of the Professional Associations in the new era of tourism and how could they be a player in a time of crisis?. The internet offers a unique opportunity of disintermediation of online sales on both hotels and airlines and many destinations have proven it. Can we prove it as well? Where are the listeners in the boards of the associations? Have they realised that the “we know it all era” is over?

I would like to call the 2 Cypriot associations to open their wings in the new internet era and fly with the fair winds towards the end user and put their small but very important brick on the online wall against crisis.

Panic in the Cyprus Tourism Industry

For the last two week we have been hearing different and many complaints about the way Cyprus Tourism is facing the financial crisis.

1. The government blames the hoteliers for not lowering prices after the state spent 52 million Euros in measures of Tourism Support.

Well 52 million is peanuts Mr. Minister. You should be ashamed mentioning them. Make numbers and see how much is per bed and these measures are indirect. Not one cent on improving quality, only seeking mass tourism with price reductions. So I suggest you stay away from the microphones.

2. The Hotel associations calling the Minister of Finance ignorant and asking him to rectify his declarations.

Dear Colleagues, please be sensible and look back to your declarations some months ago when you have been applauding the government for the “support” they offered, oh well it was before the euro elections.

3. The consumers associations complain that prices of coffees and beers are more expensive in Cyprus than in Piazza San Marco in Venice.

Good morning gentlemen, it seems that the you have never travelled abroad, or when you do travel you do not pay for your coffees and beers. I forgot the Cypriot consumer does pay your coffees and beers.

4. This shit has hit the fan in unemployment. Hotels are laying off their staff since bookings are more than 35% down.

Hello guys, wake up, bookings could be much better if in winter instead of crying you were upgrading your services and especially your ONLINE services. Mr. Google, Mr. Digg, Mr. Blogg, Mr. Social Media and many others do not know that you even exist, so twenty million travellers that use the services of those gentlemen IGNORE YOU.

I sugest we all stop complaining and start acting. In the meantime the demand on “Karpaz” , “Magusa”, “Girne” etc is sky – high, so I would ask you to act yesterday, ACT do not REACT. The previously mentioned destinations are very well known to the gentlemen mentioned above and to their users.

ACT for tourism Sake, ACT because we will end like the show and clothing industry in Cyprus in the early nineties.

We need clean roads, we need clean and accessible beaches, we need clean archaeological areas, we need nice museums, we need friendly personnel, we need to finish Larnaca Airport, we need to regulate Taxis and get real public transport, we need recycling factories, we need to work a lot and most of the things we need to do are FREE, they cost no money.

Cyprus is the second biggest market after the UK for Cyprus Tourism

I would like to thank Sigma TV that last night brought to the screens of the Cypriots what this company (Avantless) has been saying since the 11th of April 2009.

The amazing thing is that none of the Hotel Associations or anyone sitting around the discussion table last night (Thursday 11th June) during the show called 60 minutes is an active user of the internet, none of the people who was there last night can imagine that the internet has just begun to act in the world of tourism and that is the internet today is about people and not about Information and computers.

Both hotel associations (which I deeply respect) have made any efforts to sell their hotel members online in an effective, up to date and especially profitable manner. I do not blame neither the presidents nor the managers of the associations, I just think that they need to be more informed and defiantly be more flexible when it comes to take online decisions.

Practicing Customer Scare April 11th 2009 read the full article here.

Is the Cyprus Tourism Industry Online ??

Inspired in the article of Mark Seall published on the Travolution blog I made a small study of how the Travel Sector of Cyprus is cooping with the evolution the internet took after 2006.

Web 2.0 is a term that whoever works with the net knows that basically means online human relationships. In other words the internet is not a source of information but a place to share experiences, opinions and influence decisions.

In Cyprus the LEADRS of the tourism industry are still thinking tour operator will influence tourists and bring them to Cyprus. They still think that their restaurant in a five star hotel is a facility that has to be discovered once the customer has checked in, they still think that incoming agents do not even need a web site, they call Facebook a place to play and not to relate, they believe that Google is cheating and wants their money to bring them traffic.

After www.emergence2009.com in February 2009 I have had many, many , many conversations with tourist actors in Cyprus. Hoteliers, incoming agents, regional boards, tour guides and others have the opinion that the net is not real. What ever happens online is virtual, and has no influence whatsoever in their job, bank account or customer relations.
I will not mention names of companies that lead this country's tourism but we all know who they are. Well check for them on facebook, twitter or even google and you will realise that I am not making stories up.

I will only give one detail. Every 1000 tourist service related searches on the global Web sphere 800 results are coming from the other Cyprus, the one we all remember but we all deleted.

Post originally posted on emergence 2009

Cyprus hotels and travel agents alert

A new report is out and is indicating that the main tour operators that operate in Cyprus have an increase on their online platforms.

• In the year to September 2008, 33% of TUI UK's mainstream business came from online, making it the tour operator's biggest sales channel.

• Thomas Cook's recently launched e-commerce platform, Starfish, is helping increase conversion rates on thomascook.com by more than 300% and web sales in the UK have reached 27% of total bookings.

• EyeforTravel Research indicates that 26% of all UK hotel rooms are now booked online and we predict this rate will continue to increase at 15% per year till 2011.

• In a recent Expedia survey, 50% of respondents expect to save GB£250 on next year's holiday by booking their trip online, with 30% planning to switch from a traditional high street agent to an online source in 2009.

The question now is. Do you as hotelier or incoming agent know enough about online marketing? Do you have the knowledge to compete in this global market called online market? Are you ready to learn, to adapt, to adopt and improve your everyday business practices?

Internet is a free or almost free space but knowhow and expertise is something that we all need to pay for. So invest in expertise and knowhow so the free internet world makes money for your company!!


Post originally posted on www.emrgence2009.com Blog platform

Online customer Scare by Cyprus Hotels

On Friday the 10th of April 2009 I made a survey to 12 hotels in Paphos, Limassol, Agia Napa and Troodos in order to find out how Cypriots book their weekend holidays. The result of this mini survey is:

• 80% make there bookings online
• 10% book over the phone
• 10% with travel agents

Now the Cypriots who use the internet prefer www.bookcyprus.com , www.booking.com and www.expedia.co.uk . This would have been completely normal if the Cyprus Hoteliers did not have what we call special prices for locals. The funny thing is that these special prices are more expensive than the web of the hotels, more expensive than Booking.com and more expensive than expedia.

Then, today Saturday the 10th of April I have made a test on the 12 hotels I mention above. I called their reservations department, I checked their own web, I looked for them on the 3 web sites mentioned above and I also called to a travel agent.

The result was:

• 8 of those 12 hotels had 5 different rates for the same dates for the same room. One rate on the phone, one on their own web, one on expedia, one on booking and one on bookcyprus.com
• 3 of them had the same rates over the phone and on their own web but different rates on the 3rd party web sites.
• 1 hotel had price parity all the way thru.

I felt like an idiot when I mention to one reservation officer of the first 8 hotels that on booking.com I see that they have available rooms for 55 euros cheaper than the price is giving me over the phone and on their own web is 45 euros cheaper than the phone price. The answer was very embarrassing, those prices are for foreigners. I asked what would it happen if I book on booking.com and the poor lady got upset, she told me that I cannot make a booking from abroad if I am a Cypriot, and that the prices for Cypriots are the ones she told me.

I thanked her and I hung up the phone. I stared at my computer and I thought of sending an email to the General Manager of the hotel and the owners with a copy to the CTO and the 2 hoteliers associations. I decided that I will not do it because the reservations lady came all the way from Russia to work in Cyprus and she only follows orders of those I was going to send an email to. I will not mention the hotel, I will only say that is a five star hotel in Limassol.

I am wondering if hotels in Cyprus really want Cyprus residents to stay in their hotels.

Post originally Published on www.emergence2009.com

Your hotel is filthy according to TripAdvisor, is it really ??

Social media is changing the world of Tourism. This is something we all know and we all experienced during emergence2009.

Trip Advisor is probably the place where most of us, as hoteliers go to see how our hotel is rated. Now Trip Advisor also has another face, the search by key word face. If you search Filthy Hotels in Cyprus on Google or even worse search Filthy Hotels on Trip Advisor we see that this portal is NOT a valid source of information.

On the list of Filthy Hotels in Cyprus you will probably see your own clean hotel that comes up. I am sure that hotels like Ledra Iberostar in Paphos is not filthy, like St. Raphael Hotel in Limassol is neither filthy, I was there many times myself and they were very clean hotels.

The word filthy is just another word in the English language; customers may use it in a hotel review to describe how filthy the clothes of the kids got after playing in the kids club and had a great time. This is the case of Louis Phaethon that arears on the list of Filthy hotels despite its rating is really good.

The list of filthy hotels in Cyprus on Trip Advisor is huge and it goes back until 2006. So is Trip Advisor a benchmark? How valid are the comments and the search results there? Judge yourself? Is there a way to avoid this? Yes there is. !!!

Reputable Hotel with bad online reputation

Our friend Richard Sedley on his Twitter today was sending us on an article on the web of E-Consultancy about what importance brands should show about social media comments . A very interesting article that I read with great interest and inspired me to cruise on Trip Advisor and randomly check some hotels in Cyprus and Greece.

Amathus in Rhodes and Coral Beach in Pafos. Both hotels have positive and negative comments on this social media platform which I personally do not like. Now, the difference is that Rhodian Amathus followed up one negative and gave a very nice answer that makes lots of sense. Coral Beach never answers anything. This back turning gives the “excuse” to the guests to give even more negative reviews so as they influence more people. The conversation is only between the tourists and the hotel does not take any part.

Well this a fatal error. See by yourself here.

Coral Beach by Trip Advisor http://tiny.cc/i6F8P
Rhodian Amathus by Trip Advisor http://tiny.cc/7E7LF

This post is also posted on www.Emergence2009.com

Libra Holidays, choose Libra for your hotel so you go bankrupt

After several conversations with hoteliers in Cyprus and Greece I realised that Libra Holidays Group, also known as Alburry Travel Group has literally sent to bankruptcy lots of hotels and their families. This is well known but what was not that known is that the same situation happens in Turkey and Egypt. After some investigation I found out that Mr. Adreas Drakou and his environment managed to cheat many more naïf hoteliers also in Turkey and Egypt.

I have a list of apox 60 hotels and correspondence with some of them that proves that.

I am wondering why the hoteliers do not reveal and go against the owners of Libra worldwide. The owners are Andreas Drakou and other honourable businessmen form Cyprus and the UK and at the end of the day they are also victims of this big fraud since Drakou dragged them in the ditch.

There is a law office that deals with cases like that, very successful in similar cases and if the hoteliers of Cyprus, Greece (E.U countries) can join forces they will be able to recover their money. The money Libra and co took form the hoteliers is not lost, they became plots in Sharm el Sheik, in Bulgaria and Romania.

In these times of crisis we need to be united and get those companies and their owners out of the market.

Advice to Global and Cyprus Tourism companies, published by PriceWaterHouseCoopers , supported by Tourism Is All of Us.

Travel companies should hold their nerve and not panic into cutting prices too soon.
Well mention that to Thomas Cook and Thomson who came to the annual meeting of the Cypriot hoteliers asking for 20% less on the already contacted rates.

That’s the advice from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, based on the results of a poll of 2,000 British consumers.
Mr. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, remember you were at this annual meeting previously mentioned.


According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers research, over two thirds of those polled will trade down from their usual level of holiday, but only 16% will stop going on holiday altogether.
This must make think all the hoteliers of the world and especially the ones in Cyprus, why on earth the arrivals went down 20% in January and February? How many direct customers they won or lost??

Aside from cutting back, 25% of the 2,000 polled will take a cheaper holiday in the same location by:

- Staying in a cheaper hotel
- Can we go cheaper in Cyprus? I guess not much more. NO VAT for hotels for the next 2 years, this would be a measure.

- Opting for self-catering
- Supermarkets will have a boom at least we will sell out nice juice Limassol tomatoes, Chloraka cucumbers and Kokkinochoria potatoes.

Read more here

The smart guide to Northern Cyprus writen in stupid newspaper

They forgot to say that the land where the hotels they mention belongs to families that were violently displaced from their homes 35 years ago. They forget to mention that the EU and UK courts have many times dictated sentences against Turkey for not letting Greeks Cypriots to use their land, they forget to mention that in order to have hotels there we are today making the funerals of 3 small children assassinated by Turkish troops in cold blood in their baby beds and barrier in mass graves.

Read the article of our friend Mark Hodson and I am sure you would love to fly to “Ercan” and feel the warmth of the people there. He forgets that the people there are under military rule and that the people there are becoming people elsewhere since they leave “North Cyprus” due to military occupation by the troops they once beleived that they were ther to save them from the Greeks.

I understand that Mark has to make a living but he needs to be objective if he writes for the Sunday Times. He forgot to mention travel insurance from the EU does not cover the visitor there, he forgot to mention that the visitor is not allowed to take pictures in many areas, much more than you can think of since is military areas, he forgot to mention that the visitor takes risks and not even his embassy can help him.

Also the Sunday Times needs to be careful who writes what and how. Promoting illegality is similar to committing illegality. What is the difference between saying go to this shop where they sell stolen watches and buy a great Rolex for 30 pounds and go to “North Cyprus” and stay in this stolen hotel?

Read yourself the article here. Take your time

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.