Tourist arrivals in Cyprus reached 580,889 in September, up 1.8 per cent from 570,635 a year earlier, according to the Statistical Service (Cystat). That was just 991 fewer than in August.
Deputy Tourism Minister Kostas Koumis said September’s performance surpassed every previous September and would go down as the best September in the history of Cypriot tourism in terms of arrivals.
Arrivals for January to September 2026 totalled 3,401,538, down 5.6 per cent from 3,604,790 in the same period of 2025.
Arrivals fell in each of the summer months. June arrivals were down 1.7 per cent at 489,965, from 498,527 a year earlier. July arrivals fell 1.1 per cent to 582,754, from 589,116, and August arrivals dropped 3.3 per cent to 581,880, from 602,026.
Markets
The United Kingdom was the main source of tourists in September, accounting for 31.7 per cent of all arrivals with 184,345 visitors, up 2.8 per cent on September 2025.
Arrivals from Israel recorded the biggest increase for another month, rising 31.4 per cent to 105,249 from 80,115. Arrivals from Greece rose 16.1 per cent.
Several important markets declined. Arrivals from France fell 48.9 per cent, from Germany 11.6 per cent and from Poland 7.5 per cent.
Deputy minister’s comments
Koumis said that when the government and the Deputy Ministry of Tourism faced an unprecedented tourism crisis last March, caused by geopolitical tensions in the wider Middle East and the negative publicity that followed, their main goal was to keep the holiday programmes on offer to Cyprus. They knew the following months would depend largely on this, he said.
They invested once again in Cyprus’s strategic partners and changed their plans in response to geopolitical developments, he added. Six months on, the results “do not merely confirm the recovery of the tourism sector”, Koumis said. They also show its return to very promising momentum, the effectiveness of the tourism industry’s efforts and the sector’s resilience, he said.
