THE NEW TOURISM Minister for TRNC Faiz Sucuoğlu, has underlined that he wants to bring life to the economy of the island and feels that tourism is the answer to strengthening it.
TRNC Tourism Minister Faiz Sucuoğlu, who came to England for the 36th World Travel Market (WTM) held at the London Excel, was also given a reception by London’s TRNC Representative. The reception was held at the Sarastro Restaurant in Covent Garden, Central London. Special guests and press associates came together with Minister Sucuoğlu, after newly taking over the Tourism Ministry he answered questions on TRNC’s tourism and explained to guests his views.
Minister Sucuoğlu said: “The biggest block in our island’s tourism is the flying to Northern Cyprus, which comes after Cyprus Turkish Airlines became bankrupt and because of the embargoes they found themselves in a situation they couldn’t get out of.”
He underlined that works underway for direct flights and applications for these to take place in 2016 have already been made. He reminded guests that there is not enough numbers or capacity of accommodation and that new investments should be made, with the bedroom capacities reaching 35,000. He said: “As a result, this means that three million tourists will visit the island. In the last nine months, a total of 1,650,000,00 tourists have come from Turkey. We are aiming to build a tourism bridge between the TRNC and Turkey, in this time the foreign tourists coming from Turkey will have tours that cover TRNC as well.
He added: “This year we predict that over 100,000,00 British tourists entered the country for a holiday, around 22,000,00 British holiday makers paid for hotel rooms and accommodation services. However, looking at the figures of British living on the island who aren’t registered are an estimate of 80,000,00 who were provided with hotel services.”
“In 2016,we want to announce this year at the North Cyprus year in Turkey and to reach this goal by 2016 we are aiming to ask for support from Turkish Cypriot celebrities..” finished Minister Sucuoğlu.
