Cyprus: Building Bridges in the Borderlands of the New Europe - Tourism in the New Europe - page 227

Table 18.1. Arrivals through the Northern Cyprus
airports (Ercan and Geçitkale a ), 2000-2004.

May 2005 (the latest month for which figures
were available) up 67% on the previous year
(Table 18.3). Thus, whilst the value of goods
traded across the Green Line so far remains
low, at around € 100,000 per month, and the
ban on direct flights to Northern Cyprus remains
in place, nevertheless, the operation of the
Green Line Regulation has had a considerable
economic impact by enabling tourists from the
EU - as many as 10% of all the tourists staying
at some of the larger hot els 9 - to enter the north
after flying direct to Larnaca.
Tourists may be aware only of a quicker
and cheaper journey to the north of Cyprus, but
in effect their journey requires the negotiation of
multiple spaces characterized by the political
conditions regulating the mobility of different
classes of people and objects in transit. In the
next section we consider the nature of these
spaces and the types of collaborative relation-
ship that are being established across them.

Number of
arrivals

% annual
change Year

2000 416,596 NA

2001 345,601 − 17.0

2002 386,097 11.7

2003 410,142 6.2

2004 509,501 24.2

a Geçitkale is a small airport north of Ercan used
for short periods when the latter is undergoing
maintenance or renovation.
Source: unpublished data, General Directorate of
Police/Ministry of Tourism and Economy, TRNC.

Table 18.2. Non-Turkish foreign visitors staying
in Northern Cyprus hotel accommodation,
2000-2004.

Number of
foreign tourists

% of total
tourist numbers Year

2000 65,321 25.6

Crossing the Border

2001 65,455 28.6

2002 89,139 31.2

At the time of writing, there are four points at
which the Green Line may be crossed: Akyer and
Beyarmuda, through the British base area near
Famagusta, and Metahan in Nicosia, are all
open to vehicular traffic, whilst the Ledra Palace
crossing, close to the walled centre of old Nicosia,
is for pedestrian use only. 10 From being a
no-man's land populated by UN soldiers sta-
tioned at the Ledra Palace, the large and for-
merly grand hotel that dominates the buffer
zone, the crossing has reassumed some of the
appearance of a normal street, with crowds of
Cypriots and tourists using the checkpoint
every day to cross for shopping, sightseeing,
work and leisure. For the tourist, the experi-
ence of crossing the border encapsulates the
contradictory nature of Cyprus. Passing by the
cafes located conveniently close to the barricades,
where jokes and conversation are swapped in
Greek and Turkish, the tourist is confronted by
the uncompromising political slogans and
notice board displays documenting the atro-
cities committed by the 'other side', which mirror
each other from either end of the buffer zone,
and finally reaches a cluster of booths where
Greek and Turkish Cypriots sell car insurance.

2003 82,465 30.2

2004 112,921 36.8

Source: Ministry of Tourism and Economy,
TRNC, 2005.

on 29 April, 2 days before the south's entry
into the EU, and became fully operational
the following August. 6 A special protocol which
recognizes the north's anomalous status as
existing both inside and outside the EU, 7 the
Green Line Regulation controls the passage of
goods and people across the line, offers special
conditions for trade between Northern Cyprus
and the EU, and aims to foster trust and cooper-
ation between the two communities through
opportunities for joint commerce . 8
In the words of the DG Enlargement
Commissioner, Olli Rehn, 'the Green Line Regu-
lation has been a great success in the crossing of
persons'. Many of the people crossing the
Green Line are tourists visiting the north, with
monthly arrivals of non-Cypriots showing an
average increase of 57% for the first 5 months
of 2005 compared with 2004, and figures for