The negative climate prevailing in tourist industry has been reversed during the last three months, Chairman of Cyprus Tourism Organisation Alekos Orountiotis has said, estimating that tourist arrivals in 2012 will be maintained at the same level of 2011.

Speaking to CNA, Orountiotis said that the negative projections for 2012 were confirmed during the first months of the year. “We indeed had some losses in tourist arrivals and in the income from tourism”, he said, noting however, that things changed and the negative climate regarding the reservations has been reversed.

Orountiotis said that it is possible, at the end of the year, tourist arrivals to record an increase compared with 2011. “I believe that by the end of 2012 we will manage to cover all the losses recorded in the first months of the year and we will manage to end the year with positive results”, he pointed out.

CTO Chairman stressed the importance of that considering that 2012 is a very difficult year due to the major problems that Cyprus’ main tourist markets, such as England and Germany, are facing.

Orountiotis said that from January to May 2012, a total of 573.459 tourists visited Cyprus, compared to 573.985 in the same period of 2011, slightly decreased by 0.8%. He also said that next week, CTO will release the statistics for June.

Replying to a question, Orountiotis said that despite the decrease in the number of arrivals from Britain compared with 2011, there was a satisfactory number of reservations in June 2012.

As regards the reservations from Germany, he said that there is a decrease, which could be mainly attributed to the fact that tour operators in the German market include Cyprus in the packages of Greece. He estimates that tourist arrivals from Germany will record a  small decrease by the end of the year, compared with 2011. “However, this is an achievement, because in the first months of the year there was a significant decrease from that market”, he added.

The fact that those two markets are beginning to recover and with the contribution from the Russian market, from which increased arrivals are expected, make us feel confident that we will manage to conclude the year with a positive outcome, CTO Chairman pointed out.

Replying to another question, Orountiotis said that CTO detected this year a number of cases of overpriced tourist products, noting however that less cases were reported to 2011. He stressed that CTO makes efforts to tackle the problem and noted that the Organisation is conducting an immediate investigation for all complaints filed.

Finally, CTO Chairman said that the assumption of EU Presidency by the Republic of Cyprus and the fact that thousands of participants in EU conferences will visit Cyprus during the next six months, contribute to the improvement of Cyprus’ image as w quality tourist destination.