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to pick the Republic of Cyprus as their holiday destination. Officiai figures
understate the overall dependence of the Republic on tourism; the construction
industry, local manufacturers, retail and service sector and ultimately the
speculative demands of the real estate market feeding equity rates ali depend on a
buoyant tourist industry. Due mainly to the speed of development and the need to
re-deploy resources, coupled with a lack of geographical planning and sectoral
zoning in new development, Cyprus has suffered a general down-grading of the
tourist produci since 1974. Excessive compétition in the market for package
tourism, has led to low and falling profit margins per visitor, as reflected in the
declining trend in income per tourist in Figure 2.24 below.
Figure 2.24 Income per tourist in constant 1980prices, 1980-1993.
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
0\0\0\0\0\0\G\0\G\G\0\Cr\0\0\
O O O O O S O S O - n O S
I i-H i—l i—l t-H T—I i—I i-H i—I T—I i—I i—H i—I i—I
S ource: Republic ofCyp: S ta tisticalAbstiact 1993; Tourism, Migra tbn and TravelStafs 1993.
Increasingly Cyprus became more and more dépendent on mass tourism to maintain
consumption levels and make up for visible trade déficits. Despite ali the planning
initiatives designed to encourage an upgrading of the tourist product and a
diversification, of export earnings, once it overtook visible exports sometime in the
mid 1980s (see Figure 2.16), tourism, increasingly dominated by mass tourism,
remained overwhelmingly important to foreign exchange earnings, though with
falling incomes per head, this led to the need to attract ever increasing numbers of
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