The Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) has launched a massive campaign, targeting the Middle East region, mainly tourists from the UAE and Lebanon, who topped the list last year.

Backed by a budget of 19 million euro, CTO campaign “Cyprus in Your Heart,” sees great potential to increase tourist arrivals in 2011 and put the country on the international tourism map.

According to Alecos Orountiotis, CTO chairman, the campaign will promote Cyprus’ history and culture, friendliness and hospitality, its mix of modern and contemporary and the wide range of activities that one can enjoy by exploring the island.

"The campaign is being run through posters and short TV spots," he noted.

Early results are encouraging, with tourist arrivals in April up by a whopping 43 per cent over the same period last year. This was confirmed by figures released by the Statistical Service of the Republic of Cyprus.

According to the report, tourists from the Middle East played a significant role in the increase with the UAE and Lebanon being the largest source countries from the region.

On the basis of the results of the Passengers Survey conducted by the Statistics Service, arrivals of tourists reached 199,762 in April 2011 compared to 139,658 in April 2010, recording an increase of 43 per cent.

An increase of 29.1 per cent was recorded in tourist arrivals from the United Kingdom (from 62,742 in April 2010 to 80,998 in April 2011), a 74 per cent increase from Russia (from 10,910 to 18,987) and a 30.8 per cent increase of arrivals from Germany (from 13.724 to 17.956 this year).

A whopping 405,463 tourists arrived in the all-weather Mediterranean island paradise between the months of January-April 2011, as compared to 344.664 in the corresponding period of 2010, recording an overall increase of 17.6 per cent - a potent sign that the tourism industry was rapidly picking up the pace again, revealed Orountiotis.

Orountiotis said that in 2010 promotion efforts were affected by the harsh prevailing environment, with the consequences of the global financial crisis, the eruption of the volcano in Iceland, the global drop in recreation trips from Britain, reduced credit, pressure from travel organisers, viability problems faced by travel agents and air carriers, and the void left by the closing of Eurocypria airline.

He noted that, despite the drop in the UK market, there have been increases from the Russian, German and Scandinavian markets.

Orountiotis also referred to the prospect of increasing air connectivity, noting that ''the lively interest expressed by important airlines in Cyprus, the launch of new flights and the enhancement of existing ones, are not at all haphazard but the result of our unwavering efforts.''

''We have before us, significant opportunities, and to achieve multiple results for tourism, establishing Cyprus as an all-year-round destination, we have to exploit them,'' Orountiotis added.-TradeArabia News Service