The Cyprus Sports Organisation and the Cyprus Tourism Organisation are aiming to promote and develop sport tourism.
In a presentation on Tuesday organised by the two organisations, they noted that revenue from sport tourism alone in terms of hosting athletes and groups visiting Cyprus for training, are estimated to exceed 40 million euros, without including revenue from clients dealing with recreational sports activities.
The CSO chair woman Klea Hadzistefanou Papaelina said that sports and tourism are two of the biggest social institutions nowadays.
They are two institutions that contribute to common visions and objectives aiming at broader understanding among different cultures, traditions, mobilizing people and ensuring peace among nations. At the same time, they are strong driving forces for development and investment in a country`s infrastructure, its economic development and creating new income and jobs.
She said the two organisations aim to solidify and expand their cooperation through the creation of new infrastructure in sports` tourism.
Papaelina added that the Cyprus Sports Organisation has funded federations to compete for international competitions in Cyprus with the amount of 164 thousand euro and another 824 thousand for participation in international competitions and a further 64,450 for international conferences.
CTO Chairman Angelos Loizou said that sport tourism presents great possibilities for development, which will have multiple benefits for Cyprus, both socially and economically.
Perhaps the greatest benefit for sport tourism is that it can significantly contribute to mitigating the problem of seasonality in tourism, a problem that affects the economy in general, he added.
Loizou said the board has set sport tourism high on its agenda and will promote Cyprus as a high level sport destination.
Cyprus is favoured for training for football, bicycling, swimming, running. It offers great advantages such as mild climate conditions, good sport infrastructure and high level tourism infrastructure.
There are a total of 424 different sport facilities throughout the free areas of the Republic.
