IN A JOINT press statement issued on Monday, the Cyprus Hotel Association (PASYXE) and the Association of Cyprus Tourist Enterprises (STEK) expressed their intense opposition to the Cyprus government’s latest proposals on property tax.
According to their statement, “this move will hit the hotel industry as hotel units will be required to pay much higher taxes; 10-15 times more than under he current system” and called on the government to deal with the problems in the “wasteful” public sector.
Their statement concluded: “As a result, the proposed taxation will be the ‘coup de grace’ for the hospitality industry, whose survival will become even more problematic and doubtful.”
Editor’s comment
FIGURES released earlier today by the Cyprus Statistical Service (CYSTAT) show that tourist arrivals fell by nearly 11% during 2009. There were 14% fewer British arrivals last year compared to 2008, followed by 17.8% fewer Russians, 0.9% fewer Greeks and 0.9% fewer Germans.
Increasing their hotel accommodation costs through the government’s imposition of higher property taxes on hoteliers would most certainly result in more tourists taking their holidays elsewhere and cause a further decline in tourism.
