Blaming the CTO is easy!! Helping the CTO should be a national compromise.

The Cypriot Tourist Industry has a false opinion about the capabilities of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation. Blaming the CTO is very easy. People like Mr. Noel Josephides, Managing Director of Sunvil Holidays and Chairman of the Association of Greek Cypriot Travel Agents (UK), took the CTO to task for its bureaucracy and lack of responsiveness.

I would give an advice to the Greek Cypriots Travel Agents in the UK. Have some "Tourist Patriotism". Stop selling Turkey and Egypt, become real specialist on Cyprus as destination and not specialists on exploiting hotels. The tour operators that made most harm in the Cypriot Hoteliers is nobody else but members of your association, Libra Holidays, Argo Holidays just to mention the ones that busted the small hotelier in Cyprus last year.

I find the article of Cyprus Mail unfortunate and I think is time to grab the bull from the horns. The crisis can only be faced with imagination, good pricings, added value and unity. Mr. Josephides please stop blaming the CTO and look how you can help them in their task.

The big opportunity of the incoming agents in the Mediterranean to go against the crisis

Semantic web, Web 2.0, collaborative marketing.… All these sound Chinese to most of us in the travel world. When your job has been going to the airport every week to check the arrival list “your” Tour Operator sent you and contrast it with the actual arrivals : then make sure, all got their luggage, their visas, their folder with the information and they are all the transfer bus heading for the hotel you have no reason why you should think you need to do any kind of marketing and even less any e-marketing.

Well things are changing, the tourists have created a new relationship with the destination, we know have a C2C relationship and this model the incoming agent is not in the scene simply because he is not there where the conversation takes place. C2C means Customer to Customer relationship, this means that when the 2 potential customers, Mr. C1 talks to Mr.C2 the incoming travel agent needs to listen to them, needs to be there, close to the conversation and change its services adequately to make them more “sexy”. Change it can only mean that instead of offering pre set sight seen trips to Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Egypt or Sicily he could offer a la carte guided tours after he identified the customers interests. If someone does not like museums why on earth give him a museum brochure. Listen what he likes and then when he arrives to the airport surprise him with a service. I like fishing, well when I arrive to Larnaca and see that my rep has book for me about the fishing in Cyprus and the types of fish I could catch then I will feel special , he/she gained my trust and this is priceless.

The question now is… can this happen online? Well yes, not only it happens now but is already a trend in other sectors. We need the leaders in our area to invest on “semantic tourism”.

Cyprus Airways is back to Paphos International Airport (PFO)

Cyprus Airways is back to Paphos International Airport. I would like to thank the company that made 2nd thoughts to give to the inhabitants of Paphos and Limassol the opportunity to leave their small towns and fly to Athens from the small new and unimportant Paphos International Airport (PFO).

This decision also has more benefits. We now have 4 flights a week to Athens. One by Cyprus Airways and three, yes 3 times a week with Aegean Airlines.

I only have one question. Why did Cyprus Airways took the flight away at the and what changed in one month time so they bring it back? I will not dare to come to any conclusions I hope they do not make 3rd thoughts and instead of flying to Athens decide to fly to Aman, amaan amaan….

Let’s Meet in Cyprus, meetings and events under the sun

The Cyprus Tourism Organisation is preparing full speed for the up coming IMEX 2009 in Frankfurt. Cyprus is a great place for meetings of all kinds. The island offers a variety of Hotels that have all sizes of Meeting facilities with very good technological infrastructure to meet the needs of all kinds of meetings. The small distances and the great climate, especially now when rain came back again and the country is totally green, give the opportunity to the attendees of the meetings events you have to enjoy some time off the business agenda.

Meet in Limassol, Paphos or Agia Napa and in the afternoon visit the coffee shop of a “remote” village like Vasa Koilaniou near Troodos. Enjoy a home made sweet in the square of Omodos and then drive back to your hotel for a cocktail. In the evening you can continue your meeting at the old port of Limassol or in the fishing port of Paphos enjoying some fresh grilled fish.

Meet with the hotels and the DMCs from Cyprus to prepare your meeting plan. They will be there at (stand No C480.)

Hotels:
GRANDRESORT, LIMASSOL
GOLDEN BAY HOTEL
LE MERIDIEN LIMASSOL SPA & RESORT
INTERCONTINENTAL APHRODITE HILLS RESORT

DMCs:
A.D.A. TRAVELSCOPE LTD
HONEYWELL TRAVEL
OM DESTINATION MANAGEMENT
INCEMA TRAVEL
NEON CONFERENCES & INCENTIVES LTD

Ask for a meeting with them here

This post is published from www.emergence2009.com

Paphos Promenade

I was born in Paphos, by the fishing harbour in 1972. I am one of those citizens of Paphos that every Saturday afternoon I used to go for a walk with my friends to the sea front and try to impress the girls on the promenade, chat with them and see if they would accept an invitation for an ice cream.

We had a place to sit along the sea front. A bench built all along the front that apart from being the place to watch and to be watched also had the purpose of stopping the sea waves in winter.
The last few days we had a nice winter in Paphos, rain and rough sea. The sea wheat almost entered the cafeterias; people could not walk on the promenade, but nobody from the city council said a word.

The City Council led by the very qualified mayor, Mr. Savas Vergas, remade the promenade and you can neither sit and enjoy the view, nor cut the strong waves of winter.

The money spent for this works was public, our money, that means we elected capable people to manage our money and pay capable architects (Mr. Mesaritis from Nicosia).

I hope we see those capable people again elected so they make more great works like the Promenade…

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