About two-thirds of the hotels in Platres are owned by foreign investors. In the near future, Agros and Kakopetria may suffer the same fate.
This was announced recently by Andreas Mantalas, chairman of the Committee of Mountain Resorts.
He stressed that such investments would not only revive the segment of quality mountain tourism on the island, but would also lead to the loss of the unique Cypriot culture and local authenticity.
According to Mantalas, the new owners of tourist facilities are modernising them en masse. As a result, the level of comfort in mountain hotels is increasing, as are the prices of the rooms. The time is not far off when we will have to forget the 50-60 euro options that Cypriots are used to. There is no doubt that costs will rise significantly in the near future.
This is not surprising! Anyone who invests €2-3 million to renovate a building will want to recoup the money they have spent," Manialas said.
The representative of the committee said that the loss of popularity of mountain resorts in recent years was due to the growth of beach tourism and the closure of gambling clubs. In his opinion, the current government subsidy programmes are not attractive to Cypriot investors.
Government initiatives are of course supporting local mountain tourism, but not enough to bring about radical change. At the moment, all hope is pinned on foreign investors. However, by injecting money into mountain tourism, they are changing the market trends that Cypriots are used to.