2020 Cyprus Country Report

Interview
Interview: Invest Cyprus CEO George Campanellas
Attracting
Tourism
Investment
Despite the
tourism uncertainty
prevailing globally,
the TourInvest
unit’s efforts are
currently focusing
on supporting the
sector through
adjusting the
right measures
and facilitating
regulations under
the objective to lay
the foundations
for investment
and to regenerate
the sector.
What is TourInvest
and what is its goal?
The TourInvest unit is a dedicated and specialised
unit within Invest Cyprus which aims to
promote Cyprus’ investment opportunities in the
tourism and hospitality sector. The establishment
of the unit falls in line with our National Tourism
Strategy to establish the country as a quality, yearround
destination and be one of the most competitive
tourist destinations by 2030. The vision
of the Cyprus Tourism Strategy is to turn Cyprus
into a sustainable and technology-smart destination,
increase the number of arrivals by 2030
by diversifying into other tourism thematic segments
and fighting seasonality by attracting more
tourists within winter months.
In order to contribute to the achievement of
these targets, the TourInvest unit focuses on attracting
multimillion investment into large-scale
infrastructure projects that exist in diversified
thematic areas such as nautical tourism, cultural
tourism, sports, conference, health and
wellness, as well as agritourism in cooperation
with the Deputy Ministry of Tourism and other
stakeholders. TourInvest acts as the first point of
contact to international investors, and provides
valid and useful information on projects of their
interest. The unit is also actively involved in the
facilitation of the investment process and assisting
investors to overcome any legal, regulatory,
and other time-consuming procedures.
What kind of projects are
you currently focusing on?
With the target to diversify the Cyprus tourism
product and showcase the country as a quality
year-round destination, our focus is on attracting
investment into thematic tourism segments, and
to showcase the potential of Cyprus, not only as
a ‘sun and sea’ destination but also as a destination
with the potential to develop other forms
of tourism such as medical, health and wellness,
sports and conference tourism. Large-scale infrastructure
projects and mixed-use developments,
such as new hotel projects, rehabilitation centres,
conference and sports centres would attract a considerable
amount of investment as well as specific
groups of tourists that would visit the Cyprus not
only during summer months but also for other
business and medical purposes. Emphasis is also
given to the importance to extend the benefits of
tourism from the coastal areas to mountainous
and rural areas, and give boost and value to the
agritourism product. Invest Cyprus is currently
examining incentives and mechanism schemes to
improve and make the investment environment
and procedures even more attractive to entice
more interest in the country.
142 Country Report CYPRUS 2020