Cyprus Travel Update – Mon 10 May 2021

COVID19: Vaccinated cruise passengers get free entry

Cyprus is ready to welcome the first cruise passengers from June on the basis of health protocols announced on Friday by Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos and Deputy Shipping Minister Vasilis Demetriades.

As of June, Cyprus will begin welcoming the first cruise passengers from Israel, initially at Limassol port, while in July the two companies that chose the port of Limassol as their base will also begin their cruises.

Karousos told a press briefing that the protocol is quite similar to that implemented in the airports, but noted that there are some special regulations, since passengers are divided into two categories, those arriving by cruise ships for short stays, as well as crew and long-stay passengers.

He said that passengers need a negative rapid test result valid for 24 hours to be allowed to disembark, while those who have been vaccinated do not need a test.

“However, the health ministry may, if necessary conduct random tests on any passenger, regardless of they have earlier tests or have been vaccinated,” Karousos said.

He added that those passengers arriving in Cyprus ports as their final destination need to comply with the colour-coded allowance and testing regulations based on country of departure.

Demetriades said that in addition to permitting crew to disembark for a few hours, Cyprus has been at the forefront from the start of the pandemic to facilitate crew change and repatriation for some 12,000 seafarers.

The Commercial Director of DP World Limassol, operator of the port, said preparations have been underway to safely receive cruise passengers in the coming weeks, strictly observing all strict instructions laid down by the competent authorities.

Cyprus misses out on Britain’s ‘green travel list’

Britain on Friday announced that just 12 countries qualified for its ‘green’ travel list, with Cyprus being placed in the ‘amber’ category.

 The tourism industry in Cyprus is set for another major blow as it will miss out, for the time being, on the big-spending Britons.

 Britain has long been the strongest market and source of tourists for Cyprus, as seen in 2018 when Britons made up 30 per cent of the 3,938,625 visitors for that year – while Russia accounted for 9.4 per cent and Israel 8.7 per cent.

 The select few on the UK green list are: Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Israel.

Three countries – Turkey, the Maldives and Nepal – were added to the ‘red’ list.

Those on neither the red nor green list, most countries, have been placed in the amber list – which the British government has “strongly advised people not to travel to”.

Britons that do travel to amber countries – which right now includes Cyprus – will incur the requirement for 10 days of self-isolation on return and to take two PCR tests.

It was reported on Friday that Cyprus’ coronavirus diagnosis rate stood at 1,034.5 per 100,000 people between April 20 and May 3.

“This was mostly expected as the cases and the numbers generally in Cyprus remain quite high,” Lakis Avraamides, of the Famagusta Tourism Board, told the Cyprus Mail on Friday night.

“Perhaps with the ‘safetypass’ which is being introduced we can lower the numbers, but those three weeks until the categories are revised is a lost three weeks for us – and there’s no certainty we will be ‘green’,” he said.

There has been some hope that the Russian and Israeli market can partially sustain the battered local tourism market.

Despite the two-week lockdown, which ends on Monday, Russian and Israeli tourists travelled to Cyprus – staying in few dozen hotels across the Republic.

“We hope that they can keep arriving at the numbers we are seeing, and a rise of course, but no; that will not cover the hole left by the British market,” Avraamides told us.

Britain has promised to reassess its travel plans before June 28 and said that the allocation of countries will be reviewed every three weeks.

Green list travel will involve people taking two Covid-19 tests, one before arrival back into the UK and one within two days of returning.

Airlines and travel companies have complained that the high cost of tests – at around £100 each (€115) – will dampen demand, but testing prices are falling as competition picks up.

The decision was not wholly unexpected as Cyprus has by far the highest number of cases per 100,000 in the EU – with 1145, according to the ECDC’s weekly report, published on May 6.

For comparison, Italy has 292 (per 100,000), Greece 290, Spain 236, Malta 63, and Portugal 60.

But Cyprus’ also has the second highest testing rate in the EU, as it carries out about 50,000 rapid tests a day – which has led some senior Cypriot officials to say that the positivity rate should be factored in.

The British government on Friday also warned that queues at airports are expected to be very long and time-consuming, as additional health checks will be carried out.

“Today marks the first step in our cautious return to international travel, with measures designed above all else to protect public health and ensure we don’t throw away the hard-fought gains we’ve all strived to earn this year,” UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said.

The travel industry had argued that Britain’s rapid vaccination programme should enable the country to open up more quickly but the government has prioritised efforts to prevent variances of the coronavirus from entering the country.

Shapps told the media that Britain had managed to create a “fortress against the virus” and did not want to undermine the sacrifices people have made towards that effort.

He also said the list is not curated to think about “where people want to lie on beaches” and then twist the science to fit.

He says that would “betray what everyone has gone through over the last year”.

Shapps says he thinks we will gradually see an opening up of travel but “we just need to give other places the chance to catch up”.

City of Dreams casino confirms summer 2022 opening

A Cypriot audience can now experience Melco’s luxurious properties in Asia through a series of hyperlapse videos revealing the company’s integrated resorts (IRs), including City of Dreams and Studio City in Macau.

Melco commits to incorporating the same international luxury and sustainability standards at Limassol’s €550 mln City of Dreams Mediterranean, set to become Cyprus’ first IR, as well as Europe’s largest.

Melco’s properties are designed by award-winning architecture and interior design firms such as Zaha Hadid Architects, Arquitectonica, Jon Jerde and Leigh & Orange.

The unique integrated resort, City of Dreams Macau, is home to Morpheus, the $1.1 bln iconic masterpiece designed by legendary architect the late Dame Zaha Hadid.

Morpheus is the world’s first-ever free-form exoskeleton high-rise architectural structure honoured as one of the “World’s Greatest Places” by TIME Magazine in 2018.

Studio City, an integrated entertainment resort opened in 2015, is the most diversified entertainment establishment in Macau.

The Hollywood-inspired, cinematically themed resort is a next-generation of must-see leisure and entertainment offerings.

Set to open its doors in the summer of 2022, City of Dreams Mediterranean will be a world-class development project and a landmark for Cyprus.

The resort will consist of a 14-storey, five-star hotel with more than 500 luxury guest rooms and suites, approximately 10,000 square meters of MICE space (Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions), an outdoor amphitheatre, a family adventure park, and a variety of fine-dining restaurants and luxury retail outlets.

Its interior design is customised specifically for its development in Cyprus. In contrast, its exterior design will feature Mediterranean elements with native plant species mirroring the character of the environment and supporting the landscape’s ecology.

Additionally, 130,000 new trees and indigenous species of flora will be planted, creating a holiday oasis for guests and at the same time reducing carbon emissions. The resort will also include a retail promenade that bears a resemblance to the old town area of Nicosia.

The development has a high-tech water reuse system to the energy-saving optimisation of the building’s orientation and shading.

The resort was recently honoured with a BREEAM Excellent rating – the world’s leading sustainability assessment method for master planning projects, infrastructure, and buildings – for its sustainability strategy, becoming the first building in Cyprus to achieve this recognition.

Grant Johnson, Property General Manager of City of Dreams Mediterranean, stated: “We are committed to delivering an extraordinary integrated resort to Cyprus based on Melco’s international standards.

“Melco aims to create facilities that combine excellence in design, functionality and sustainability, offering a premium experience to our guests and a state-of-the-art working environment for our colleagues, while creating real value for the local economy and society”.

Sources:
‘COVID19: Vaccinated cruise passengers get free entry’
Financial Mirror

‘Cyprus misses out on Britain’s ‘green travel list’’
Cyprus Mail

‘City of Dreams casino confirms summer 2022’ opening
Financial Mirror