The minister said these matters would be discussed by EU transport ministers. Cyprus favours a common protocol to avoid confusion between travellers, companies, and tour operators, Perdios said. The EU’s 27 transport ministers are to meet on Wednesday to discuss how to align measures to relax lockdowns.

Perdios said Cyprus hoped to have its first tourists in July, though that would depend on the coronavirus epidemiological data on the island and abroad.

“If all goes well in Cyprus and abroad, we could gradually have our first visitors at the beginning of July,” he told the Cyprus News Agency.

The minister said no one knew how things would develop eventually and even if Cyprus opened its airports for tourism it did not mean they would come since markets may not be ready.

Perdios said there were certain countries that seemed to be handling the coronavirus better than others and their citizens may choose to travel in the summer.

People from Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, and Israel seem to be in position to travel earlier than some other countries though no one could say at this stage.

Perdios stressed that to accept people from a country it must be scientifically proven that it has succeeded in containing the virus under a point decided by epidemiologists.

As far as hotels go, some will not open at all while some will opt to open later on. Those that open will have increased running costs due to restrictions.

Domestic tourism may be able to cover some of the losses but not by much.

Last year, domestic tourism contributed around 7% overall and according to Perdios it could rise to about 12% with some effort.

But Cypriots cannot replace close to 40 million overnight stays, the minister said.

Perdios was one of the EU tourism ministers who on Monday, along with Bulgaria, France, Greece, Malta, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain called in a joint statement for “homogeneous measures at the European level” to be taken in all member states to restart travel and tourism in a safe way as coronavirus lockdowns are eased.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that EU governments were risking a clash with the EU executive arm over their support for travel firms issuing vouchers for cancelled holiday deals without giving customers the option of cash refunds as required by EU law, diplomats said.

Countries including France, Italy, Belgium, Romania and Poland said they had adopted measures, or will do so, to allow the issuance of such vouchers to help shield the hard-hit tourism sector from the effects of the coronavirus epidemic that has brought global travel to a financially devastating halt.

Yet under EU law, of which the European Commission is the guardian, customers must have the right to choose between a cash refund or accepting a voucher for a future package holiday. If customers are not offered such a choice, the European Commission could later launch infringement procedures against offending member states that could result in fines.

The same problem affects airlines, which have been trying to deflect millions of refund claims to avoid additional drains of their cash reserves in a sector grounded by the pandemic.

“Vouchers should be insured against insolvency if they are offered. This applies for airlines but also to other transport modes, for everyone,” EU Transport Commissioner Adina Valean told EU lawmakers on Tuesday.

Tourism represents more than 10% of the EU’s GDP and employs almost 12% of the work force.

Source: Cyprus Mail