Cyprus-Forum.com

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Visitors to the north up


TOURISTS are travelled in their thousands to the occupied north in 2004, taking arrivals figures over the half a million mark.

According to statistics released by the ‘ministry of finance and tourism’, arrivals to the north have increased by 115,000 (compared to the same period last year), surpassing the half a million mark, between January and November 2004.

Of those, 389,000 came from Turkey and around 155,000 from other countries.

The numbers for November alone reveal that 39,318 Turks and 7,010 foreigners arrived in the north by plane or ship, showing a 13.2 per cent increase compared to the same month last year.

Hotel bookings increased by 10.9 per cent, according to figures published in yesterday’s Afrika. The newspaper questioned the true size of the population in the north after figures showed 544,000 people arrived in the north the past 11 months but only 127,000 left.

Meanwhile, over 1.2 million crossings of Greek Cypriots and foreigners were recorded at the crossing points on the Green Line between the months of January and November this year.