The Government should be boosting tourism as it has come to the rescue of the economy providing much needed extra growth, according to House Commerce Committee head Lefteris Christoforou. Addressing a Committee meeting yesterday, Christoforou was referring to positive tourism results over the last seven months. According to DIKO MP Angelos Votsis, there was a 17.5 per cent increase in tourism revenue over the last seven months and almost a 13 per cent increase in visitor arrivals. “Tourism must remain at the forefront of the economy in order to extend the tourist period and to give incentives for flights over the winter period – and, beyond that, motives for winter tourism,” said Christoforou. He stressed the government should not entertain paring down development funds, or funding for the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO), which would only result in reversing any of the promotion work done to draw in tourists.

The government, Christoforou went on to add, should in fact be bolstering tourism, as every one per cent increase brings in a €20-million revenue to the government.

CTO head Alecos Orountiotis confirmed the fact the island’s tourism is “doing well” but added that the main target now was raising arrivals over the winter period and the following summer.

He added that signs pointed to the island having “even better results than last” winter, tourism-wise.

Christoforou, meanwhile, urged Cyprus’ various tourist organisations to centre their efforts on getting more of a local work force involved in the “touristic product”.

The Committee yesterday also discussed problems concerning Larnaca’s marina.

It was recently revealed that some of the wharfs where boats are moored had problems of structural adequacy, resulting in the CTO closing off access to these dangerous areas.

Orountiotis explained that they were in contact with the marina’s boat owners in a bid to deal with these problems, adding that a special engineer would be assigned to conduct a study on the true danger posed by the wharfs.

According to Votsis, such safety issues are earmarked to be discussed next Tuesday at a special Commerce Committee meeting.