Meeting re tourism in Larnaca is reported in the Cyprus Mail. Some of the city’s liabilities are identified pretty accurately, though some obvious ones missed. The new Radisson Hotel near Lidl is, J was pointing out recently, on an extremely noisy street. Probably “climate controlled” inside but balconies obviously exposed. I’ve thought all along that the location is unimpressive, featuring hotels of seedy repute and a view of oil tanks (which are supposed to be moved elsewhere but somehow never are. It does have high rise parking, though anyone wishing to drive to the city centre would find a severe shortage of parking spots.
Have no idea what the plumbing is like (though have in fact considered having coffee there with a view to inspecting facilities) but if it’s like any other building in Larnaca, including the new(ish) airport, the Greek custom of small diameter waste water pipes prevails. And all loos have signs indicating that toilet paper should be placed in the garbage bin and not flushed. A feature not lost on tourists.
The meeting seems to have discussed infrastructure and what they refer to as aviation connectivity as well as pollution (a fair bit of which is fine particulate matter - namely dust blowing in from the Sahara - about which little can be done). [And totally incidentally non-Cypriot media reports this week were pleased to inform the public that cooking a Sunday roast in the kitchen produces pollution which rivals that of heavy traffic, leaving one to remember that none of us get out of life alive anyway].
The final insult, though, would seem to be a reference to “the degradation of the tourist product”. It takes a moment to realise that this is a reference in Cypriot civil service jargon to the government’s wish to acquire a better, i.e. richer class of tourist. The degraded tourist product is us.
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