Northern Cyprus to target tourists in Turkey and Europe with 'year round good weather'

Give us an overview of the tourism sector in Northern Cyprus.

When we look at Northern Cyprus' tourism from the past until the present day, we tend to think about "sun, sea and sand." But we have to start talking about other factors in the tourism sector like history, nature, sport activities, and harvest tourism.

In fact we have already started focusing on these activities. We will have a tree planting activity for tourists, especially foreign tourists. They will receive a certificate and an occasional email reminding them that they have a planted tree on the island. We are also going to make sure we coordinate different activities of local municipalities so they do not take place on the same day.

We are also seriously focusing on health tourism and we have received serious interest from investors on this issue. We have 100,000 students from all over the world and highly developed medical universities. In addition to the education these universities provide, they have also entered the health sector. 

Northern Cyprus recently became the 54th member of the World Health Tourism Congress. We believe this is very important. The island's weather is excellent for the elderly, so we have started working on plans to attract older tourists, especially from countries with long winter seasons. Our purpose is to make them stay much longer than ordinary tourists.
 

What are the numbers?

We have one million tourists coming to the island annually. We have managed to increase this number this year by attracting more tourists in the winter season. Now, 70 percent of the capacity of hotels is already filled until June. We also try to make sure our guests do not stay in their hotels and instead...