During the month of June 117,000 Russians made the trip to Cyprus while British passport holders making the same journey came in second at 111,000 visitors. Numbers of Russians tourists have been rising at a phenomenal rate. As we predicted some years ago Russian tourist market finally became the biggest for Cyprus, knocking the British of the No1 spot for the first time.

While much work remains to be done to make sure that tourists from all countries are well catered for, Russians have given Cyprus enthusiastic thumbs up, not only outscoring the British for sheer number of visitors, but also with inter-trip spending that runs at almost 1000 Euros per person per trip with the British lagging behind at almost 770 Euro per person per trip.

While the troubles in Ukraine and a depreciation of the Russian Ruble against the Euro may have put some travelers of a trip to Cyprus its’ clear that the mix of long hot summer evenings and the cleanest bathing waters in Europe is an attractive combination for the travelling Russian family.

We consider this a very healthy and promising trend that will eventually positively affect not just the travel industry, but many other sectors of economy including real estate in Cyprus.