“We have successfully completed 10 years and we are all very proud of our achievements. We have purposely chosen Nicosia this year to hold our 10th annual general meeting since we wanted many people from the tourism industry, including decision-makers in order to convey the message that sustainability is the only way forward for the Cypriot tourism. […]

We strongly believe that these 10 years we have contributed towards introducing sustainability in the tourism industry.

All sustainability programmes and initiatives undertaken by CSTI and its partners, Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) and Travel Foundation, are more than essential to the development of tourism in Cyprus.

It is more important than ever for Cyprus to adopt a sustainable approach to tourism. Tourism is probably the only industry that helped and is helping Cyprus’ economy to get out of the recession.

It is more than vital to protect our environment, our cultural inheritance and promote our local produce. We must get back our local pride and tourism is the main industry which has employed unemployed Cypriots and helped to regenerate the economy. […]

Tourists have become more demanding, they are asking for experiences during their holidays that [they] will remember for the rest of their lives.

They want when they stay at the Cypriot hotels and enjoy our beaches to be able to tell the difference that they are in Cyprus and not in another Mediterranean destination.

They can tell the difference only if they eat traditional Cypriot food, enjoy the Cypriot breakfast at their hotels, if they are served by Cypriots, if they see endemic plants on our beaches and the hotel gardens, that can only be found in Cyprus, or if they encounter other cultural and social aspects of our civilisation. […]

In order for Cyprus to continue its journey of sustainability we need to integrate sustainable tourism at a national policy level.

It is a matter of collaboration among several industry sectors and in order to engage all the government departments a leader in sustainable tourism is required.

We embrace the intentions of the government to create a new position for undersecretary of tourism that will ensure a formal structure of sustainability is incorporated in government strategy and only then will several government departments work together to address issues such as waste management and seasonality.

In addition, it has become very clear that sustainable tourism can only be achieved if all stakeholders are involved, such as hoteliers, restaurateurs, developers, travel agents, tour operators, environmental agencies, non-governmental organisations and last but not least local communities. […]

It is now time to place sustainability in the centre of all future tourism related strategies.

Sustainability will become our unique selling point – something that will improve our image and we will eventually become less dependent on prices where we cannot compete with destinations such as Turkey, Egypt or even Greece.

A sustainable Cyprus will become more attractive to markets such as Germany and Central Europe [and we are also] hoping to solve the seasonality issue.

We want to attract higher income, higher education, higher spending customers who are not travelling in the peak season and are interested in experimential tourism which in Cyprus we offer throughout the year. […]

We believe that CSTI and other stakeholders should be part of sustain able tourism advisory boards at all levels of government and/or industry.

They should have an input into sustainable tourism planning and development. […]

It is a great pleasure to see the tourism industry after the economic crisis promoting local produce and encouraging hotels and other tourism businesses to hire local people.

This is exactly what our tourism product was missing during the last 10 – 15 years.

In addition, we are encouraging the industry to introduce renewable sources of energy, reduce the water consumption and the waste production and address the problem of seasonality.

All these will make our tourism product more competitive, will reduce unemployment, reduce operational costs and increase revenues from tourism.”