Rural Tourism in Cyprus

Rural tourism and the challenge of tourism diversification: the case of Cyprus Rural tourism has long been considered a means of achieving economic and social development and regeneration. More specifically, it has been widely promoted as an effective source of income and employment, particularly in peripheral rural areas where traditional agrarian industries have declined. More recently, however, a number of established tourism destinations have also turned to rural tourism in order to diversify their tourism …

…e self-catering apartment sector during the 1980s, has had a significant impact on the nature of tourism in Cyprus ( Sharpley, 2000) To summarise, then, the development of tourism in Cyprus has been characterised by the rapid growth of mass, summer-sun and increasingly price-sensitive package tourism, concentrated in large coastal resorts and dominated by major overseas tour operators. Conversely, inland rural areas, once the focus of tourism in Cyprus, have gained relatively little benefit from tourism.