The Russian plane tragedy in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this year has encouraged tourism interests to Cyprus as an alternative to Egypt as reported by the press.

Russia banned flights to Egypt stating safety concerns as 224 people on board the Airbus A321-200 died just 23 minutes after departing from the Red Sea resort. It’s believed terrorism was responsible for the crash. The crash led Russia to halt all flights to and from Egypt.

The deadly terrorist attack in Tunisia also affected tourism to the region.

While Moscow is believed to favour domestic tourism, those who will travel are thought to now be booking to travel to Cyprus.

There are nine flights a week between Russia and Cyprus.

In addition, the current turbulent situation between Russia and Turkey has seen athletes who would of trained in Turkey now book to come to Cyprus for training.  The Russian Football Federation has banned football teams from training in Turkey at the beginning of the year, various sporting groups are now looking at Cyprus to train.

The Cyprus Tourism Organisation is jumping on this opportunity and is hoping to make the move for Russian athletes training in Turkey to Cyprus a permanent one.

The only down side is the current exchange rate, with the Ruble being very weak against the Euro, making a holiday to Cyprus slightly more expensive than if holidaying in Russia.

The world’s largest tour operator TUI Group confirmed the increase of Russians to Cyprus by saying that they were confident that their earnings would increase by more than 10% as holidays to Cyprus replace security-threatened destinations in Egypt and Tunisia.

Source: InCyprus