€7.3m of the €10.5m spent in the north was for hotel bookings, gambling at casinos and the purchase of airline tickets to Turkey.

In December, €396,000 was spent on hotel bookings while a further €174,000 was spent in the casinos.

In total, JCC registered €3.732m spent on hotel accommodation and €1.977m at casinos while Greek Cypriots – during 2016 – paid over €1.6m for airline tickets to Turkey.

According to JCC, credit card purchases in shops by Greek Cypriots in the north reached €108,000 and in supermarkets €34,000.

JCC was created in 1989 for the purpose of administering the processing and settlement of card transactions. Today, JCC’s primary role is to provide high quality financial and data infrastructure services to the banking and commercial community in Cyprus.

Source: InCyprus