Undersecretary to the President Konstantinos Petridis revealed that an institutional upgrade of the CTO to a Ministry of Tourism is being promoted by the end of the year. On the other hand, the competent minister George Lakkotrypis acknowledged that as a country we have failed to diversify our tourism product.
In more detail, and according to what KYPE broadcast, the Undersecretary to the President Konstantinos Petridis stated that "we are ready to submit a bill that will reduce the administrative costs of hotels and restaurants", there should be a change in the categorization of anachronistic, changes in the regulatory and institutional framework, and it has been noted that there has never been a comprehensive national strategy for tourism.
He added that "we tried in various ways, ie travel agents, airlines and with the policy of open air, to increase connectivity and bring people to Cyprus. "When there is demand, there will be supply," he said, noting that "we need to increase demand and that is why we need to become more competitive and less bureaucratic."
For his part, the Minister of Trade and Tourism George Lakkotrypis argued that Cyprus has lost its competitiveness and explained that since 2001, 2002 and 2003 which were record years, while world tourism numbers increased dramatically Cyprus has remained stuck at 2,4 , 2,5 - 2000 million tourists. "While in the early 2001s we played alone with the sun and the sea, we see from XNUMX onwards, when markets such as Egypt, Turkey and Greece entered, that we failed as a country to differentiate what we offer to our visitors," he said. .