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The role of tourism in the economic development of Cyprus can not be ignored.
Tourism interconnects with many of the themes developed in earlier chapters. The role
of the state in the south, in the immediate post-war period, was crucial, effective in
terms of incentives though impotent in terms of regulation. Has tourism been the
"golden egg" that the World Bank 15 believed it to have been in the south? It has been
argued here that other sectors of the economy were more important in establishing the
recovery there. In the north, the state's involvement in the economy was far more
pervasive, though it has not encouraged the same level of utilisation within an
extensive pre-existing tourist infrastructure. At first, resources under Turkish-Cypriot
control were concentrated in other áreas of the economy. Instead of attempting to fill
and expand capacity, the leadership in the north re-allocated under-utilised tourist
facilities to other service sector industries such as higher education and the security
forces. Despite which, tourism in the north rapidly eclipsed other sources of foreign
exchange. The state finally channelled more resources into tourism in 1986,
recognising the actual and potential contribution of the sector. It is hoped that the
relative significance of tourism (and other export sectors) has been put into some
historical context here. In examining the effects of successful mass tourism in the
south, some of the constraints on its development in the north have been spelled out,
although much work is still necessary. In the context of over-development and overdependence
on mass tourism in the south, it is worth speculating whether the north
has, perhaps unconsciously, exploited its constraints and succeeded through a strategy
of niche marketing, high margins and sustainable development. Like the refugee
problem in the south, to roughly paraphrase Roger Zetter 16 , constraints on tourism in
the north may have been exploited as development opportunities.
15 I.B.R.D. 1987. "Cvprus: A Long Term Development Perspective". A World Bank Country Study,
Washington DC: World Bank Publications.
16 Zetter R. 1992 "Refugees and Forced Migration as Development Resources", Cyprus Review, Vol.4,
No.l, pp.7-39.
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