By Marinos Pavlikkas TODAY's Sunday 3 June 2018
Noise pollution and the sale of alcohol in kiosks, the main problems that the Municipality of Ayia Napa has to face. Mayor Giannis Karousos calls for the immediate establishment of the Ministry of Tourism.
In his statements to "Simerini" on Sunday, the Mayor of Ayia Napa revealed the strategy of the Municipality for tourism until 2030. More than € 100 thousand are being invested for online promotion
"The future belongs to the cities. In cities that can attract the brightest minds and push them to prosperity ". This is stated in the introduction of the Manifesto of European Cities Marketing in May 2017, the non-profit organization for Tourism Councils and tourism marketing organizations in Europe, in which more than one hundred large cities in 36 countries participate. Of course, today's cities compete both nationally and internationally to attract investment, a skilled workforce and, of course, visitors.
Nevertheless, today the competition is becoming more and more due to the globalized tourism industry, the ease of travel and the huge volume of information and advertising. Therefore, the traditional display of a postcard or a monument is less important than the pure sense of culture and local element that the visitor is looking to find and for which it is worth devoting time, money and effort.
For example, Ayia Napa
Key pillars of the new tourism strategy are, inter alia, sustainable development, international branding, and smart cities. These elements seem to have been taken seriously by the Municipality of Ayia Napa during the preparation of the Strategic Marketing Plan, which has already been prepared and will begin to be implemented in the coming years. The goal of the Municipality of Ayia Napa is the implementation of the National Strategy for Tourism in our country, which wants the tourist resort of the province of Famagusta to become by 2030 one of the most cosmopolitan tourist resorts in the Mediterranean and one of the three most important destinations for fun and beaches.
With this decision, the Municipality of Ayia Napa invests an amount of one hundred thousand euros for its promotion and promotion on Social Media and the Internet, through new marketing practices, that is, and shows the way to the Cyprus Tourism Organization but also to our country for the new tourism promotion strategy. Through this strategy, the city will acquire its own branding "Always Ayia Napa", will attract new markets, such as France, Germany, Lebanon and Israel, while changing its existing image.
The problems solved
The struggle of Ayia Napa for a radical overthrow of its international image was difficult and painful. Difficult because it took a number of projects from the Municipal Authority to create benchmarks, and painful because the Municipality threw a punch at the establishment of nightclubs, shops and businessmen.
In the race to reshape the image of Ayia Napa, a number of projects were added, with the aim of creating landmarks beyond the sun and the sea, but also entertainment, which until recently were the only and exclusive reasons for choosing the city as a travel destination. The Ayia Napa International Sculpture Park was created, which today numbers one hundred and eighty-six works by one hundred and fifty-five creators from every corner of the Earth, the Cactus and Other Succulents Park, the Environmental Center in the National Forest of Cape Grecos, the quality Thanks to the renovations and extensions but also with the construction of new luxury units, the apartments in the Center began to be converted into boutique hotels, the feeling of security and control improved, as the number of municipal officials in charge of control increased, while soon it is expected to passed by the Council of Ministers and the proposal for installation of closed circuit monitoring in squares and public spaces.
At the same time, the visual pollution was fought, after the Municipality launched a campaign for the removal of illegal billboards, the beaches fell into the hands of the Municipality with the corresponding financial benefits, while new investments, such as the grandiose project of Naguib Sawiris, worth two hundred and fifty hundred, are expected to attract new investors.
"Outdoor discotheque"
Nevertheless, the Mayor of Ayia Napa, in his statements to "S", stated that the main problem that our country failed to solve, and is becoming "resilient internationally", is noise pollution, characteristically stating that Cyprus has been transformed in an "outdoor discotheque". Due to loopholes in the legislation, music broadcasting in some cases goes away, with visitors and residents alike voicing strong complaints about noise pollution until the early morning hours.
According to Mr. Karousos, the existing legislation cannot be implemented, and the Parliament should immediately proceed with the implementation of new legislation that puts a barrier to the unrestrained broadcast of music in the morning. At the same time, Mr. Karousos raises the issue of the sale of alcoholic beverages from the kiosks.
According to him, the sale of alcoholic beverages (up to 5%) such as beers, from the kiosks, has turned these establishments into breweries, and they are profiting at the expense of entrepreneurs who invest large sums in the operation of a brewery. Another problem that remains, he says, is the transition of tourists to the occupied areas, since the numbers of the Statistical Service indicate only arrivals and not accommodation, with the result that the number of visitors going to the occupied areas is not visible.
The Ministry of Tourism is a panacea
According to Giannis Karousos, the Cyprus Tourism Organization has come full circle and should be abolished immediately. As he mentioned in "S", the existence of the Ministry of Tourism would solve these problems, as there would be a political leader but also a political will to deal with them. He pointed out, in fact, that Cyprus has received a large number of tourists in recent years, since the geopolitical developments in the Middle East led there.
He noted, however, that the re-emergence of cheap destinations such as Egypt and Turkey, combined with the low value of the ruble against the euro, have moved Russian visitors to these countries, with many tour operators now seeing a drop of up to 50 % in the Russian market. If there was a correct and structured strategy for tourism, he said, as well as the Ministry of State from the beginning, then our country would have the opportunity to proceed with studied promotion moves.
In short, it is worth mentioning that the Municipality of Ayia Napa, based on the National Strategy for Tourism until 2030, has proceeded with other important projects, which are being implemented, such as the creation of a university unit of American and Lebanese interests, the creation of themed beaches , the open-air amphitheater, the transformation into a smart city, the creation of an artificial reef and the transformation into an Eco Destination in a program in which it participates together with Paralimni and Larnaca, with a fund of 5,5 million euros for the two Municipalities of the province Famagusta, with the aim of converting the organic waste of hotels into compost.
SIMERINI newspaper of Sunday, June 3, 2018