Cyprus Tourism Destination and Nature

Once upon a time there was a country in the Mediterranean where you could swim in crystal waters, where you could walk in its green fields, where you could taste the real taste of its veggies, where you could get better water from the taps than from the bottles, where you could pickup mushrooms on its mountains and valleys, where you could meet foxes in its forests, where you could watch eagles in its skies where you could not find rubbish in its forests.

Now in this country you find this….

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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

How to attract Tourist in a town- Larnaca is the example

Cyprus those days celebrate one of the oldest ever traditions of the country. Kataklysmos, is the water Festival that commemorates the Biblical flood by which God destroyed all living creatures on earth. The festivals take place at the coastal towns of the island.

Larnaca has a long tradition in this festival and the town hall prepared a very attractive, as they say, programme of the festival. A friend of mine sent an email to the town hall the 20th of May to get some info about the festival since the municipal web site had no information then www.larnaka.com . Well until today 27th of may the town hall did not have the programme ready to publish it either on the web or to the press or even send it by the old traditional fax.

My friend, at my presence, called the Municipal Cultural Services many times at +357 24 657745 but never managed to talk to anyone. Today finally the call went through and the person who attended the phone call passed the call to someone else, this someone else passed to the so called responsible person. Finally someone responsible. At the question if they got an email requesting info the answer was that the emails are reviewed by the mayors secretary and answered whenever the Mayor can since he revises them. The email was sent to municipality@larnaka.com the 20th of May asking information about the festival. The mayor in his policy to be close to the citizen answers all mails, I guess.

Anyway, this responsible person said that the programme is not ready yet to be published. The festival is 10 days, the 6th until the 8th of June. The lady on the phone recommended to my friend to make the booking at the hotel for the whole family and if the programme of the festival is not suitable the booking can always be cancelled, and since the booking is from Cypriots the hotel will not take any cancellation fees and no credit card guarantee. I guess this responsible person is also the director of the hotel or hotels in Larnaca.

I will not continue anymore because the rest if Kafkian. Anyway this is what I call Regional Marketing. The town hall of Larnaca apart from running the town also knows a lot about cancelation policies of hotels, reservation terms and conditions and especially they have a complete knowledge of the availabilities of the hotels in the town as well as that hotels apply different terms to Cypriots and different to Swedish, Russian or other white customers.
Thank you Larnaca for boosting the image of your town and for your efforts to promote our traditions in the globe!!!

Mobile web is a challenge for Tourist Destinations and Tourist Products.

According to Yahoo 30% of the British surf on the net when they are in the loo. Yes 30% of the British consumers actually use their blackberries, iphones etc when they sit on the toilet.

This is defiantly a huge challenge for the tourism world. While using the loo usually is a relaxing moment and it can be a crucial moment when it comes to decision making. This can sound weird but I am sure that the correct marketing message can be sent from destinations and tourist products-services so as to influence a decision.

Mobile web is still something that the Travel world and especially official destination sites did not take into account seriously. Very few travel pages have a mobile version, many a readable but still hard to use and slow. What is even worse is the online booking systems, when it comes to making a booking using a mobile device is still hard and confusing.

So, now in times of crisis we need to be creative, we need to invest in thinking and acting, we need to test and get feedback from users, we have to lead and not to follow slowly.

The tourism industry needs to take initiatives in making things easy for the end user since is the end user that brings us food to our table today and he/she will bring us more tomorrow with des intermediation.

Here I would like to thank Richard Sedley for his twitter that inspired this post and Gerd Leonhard for his vision on Mobile Web.

Yahoo article here

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Cyprus sings Tourist Agreement with China

Forty eight million (48,000,000) Chinese travelled outside Chine last year . This is the data the minister of Tourism of Cyprus announced on the Cypriot radio stations. During his trip to China, Mr. Antonis Paschalides had as objective of reinforcing the trade and tourism links between the Asian Goliath and the Mediterranean David.

During a morning programme of a local radio (if a recall well was in Radio Pafos www.radiopafos.com) Mr. Paschalides clearly stated that his aim was to built strong tourism relationships between China and Cyprus and therefore an agreement was signed.

I must say that I am totally relived, I think that after this visit in China all the hoteliers, incoming agents, restaurateurs, excursion organisers, tour guides (especially the Mandarin speaking ones) and the rest of the tourist sector feel relived. The bankers are tranquil that the tourist sector will pay them back all their loans and they will be able to lend to the sector even more since the Chinese are on their way.

I am sure that the Minister has also agreed with Cyprus Airways to start direct flights to Beijing (inChinese: 北京) and Shanghai ( in Chinese: 上海). I also want to believe that our embassy and consulates in China have made all the adequate arrangements to provide the many thousands, probably millions of Chinese with visas. I am also positive that all the implied governmental departments such as the department of Archaeology have already made all the necessary arrangements to translate the tourist guides in Mandarin and Cantonese as well as the web sites of Cyprus Airways and the CTO.

So the next flourishing business in Cyprus is teaching Chinese to Russian, Polish and Romanian waiters, receptionists and housekeepers.

I am wondering if our chefs are ready to cater for Chinese.

Here is the official site of the Chinese Tourism Office

Paphos Fine Dining Experience - Italian food at its best

Many times we think that hotel restaurants cater only tasteless buffets for mass tourism. I must admit, that this was the perception I had and the experience I gained after many years of working in the industry. This was until I stepped in the Bacco Restaurant in the Elysium hotel in Pafos.

I was not expecting to have such a fine Italian dinner in Cyprus. I am a big pasta fun, I worked in Italian restaurants for some years. I am worse than an Italian when it comes to al dente pasta. The Elysium hotel has probably the best Italian restaurant in Cyprus. Bacco, an internationally known Italian brand has the reputation of excellence and defiantly the fine dining experience I had in Elysium last night confirms it.

So if you are in Paphos and you want to give a surprise to a friend, to your wife to your husband or your lover, do not hesitate, call the Elysium and book a table in Bacco Restaurant.

A suggestion … try the Tiramisu… simply fantastic.