22.03.2022
Paphos remains an attractive destination for British tourists despite rising costs of goods and services around the world, as a survey in the UK ranks the city as the fifth best holiday destination for British travelers.
The British Postal Service’s latest annual holiday spending barometer surveyed 36 destinations to compare the cost of food, drink and other essentials that British tourists are likely to buy from abroad.
The survey showed that the British pound now matters more than last year, as prices in Paphos fell by 15.2% compared to 2021, pushing Cyprus up from eleventh to fifth place.
The fall in value in Cyprus is the third largest compared to the rest of the destinations on the list.
According to the survey, Turkey and Bulgaria offer the best value for money of the products surveyed, at £26.13 and £26.19 respectively. Prices in both hotels have come down, but in Marmaris a 37% drop puts it in first place compared to the previous leader Sunny Beach in Bulgaria, although there are only a few pence between them.
The Portuguese Algarve (£44.39) comes in third and is once again the cheapest in the Eurozone, priced 25% lower than the sixth-place Costa del Sol (£59.56).
Cape Town, South Africa came in fourth place with prices down 1.6% to £53.23.
Paphos is in fifth place with prices falling to £56.44 from £85.92.Mombasa in Kenya came in seventh with £61.30.
Sliema, Malta (ninth) also entered the top 10 after dropping 5.8% to £76.94.
Keeping prices under control
A local tourism contributor and a member of the Paphos Regional Tourist Board said the BPO survey confirms that tourism businesses in the city and area are doing their best to keep prices down, driven by inflation and the war in Ukraine.
“All stakeholders in Paphos have agreed that they will have to do everything in their power to maintain the good reputation of the city, especially among British tourists after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine,” he said.
Paphos is heavily dependent on British and Russian tourists, with the latter likely unable to find their way to the island due to the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.
Before Covid-19, more than 53% of the record 3.97 million tourists who arrived in Cyprus in 2019 came from the UK (33.5%) and Russia (19.7%).
Cyprus had three consecutive years of boom before the pandemic struck, with a peak of 1.4 million arrivals in 2019 for the British.
