Based on my local facebook group and my experience in three hostels in Cyprus so far – mostly they’ve heard the word “conflict” but other than that they don’t know shit and call it “Turkish Cyprus”
There’s also a British FB group about Cyprus where it is forbidden to use the word “occupied” to not cause any negative connotations so… how would they know?
Yesterday I’ve met a guy from New York who told me he fell in love with Cyprus because there are no problems, no politics, no controversy
Most foreigners I have met on airplanes don’t know. They think it’s the Northern part of Cyprus. They advertise it as such. It’s duplicitous and disgusting.
It comes as no surprise and it’s partially our fault. When the tourism industry is based on just the physical beauty of the island, the nightlife and the pleasant weather, there is little incentive for most tourists to ever care about the local history or culture. Does anyone know about the history or culture of the Bahamas? What about the Maldives? Cyprus as a tourist destination has a lot more in common with those than we’d like to believe.
Cyprus has such a rich history and traditions and we undersell them completely. The result is the average tourist being as clueless about Cyprus the place as much as they are for Cyprus the country and its politics.
Of course I understand this stance in part. There is a danger that if you openly say on every piece of your promotional material that you are under military occupation and there is an unresolved conflict, people might reconsider visiting. However, going from being extremely vocal about it to just passingly mentioning it to the point of tourists being clueless is totally unwarranted.
And last but not least, a great burden of responsibility falls on the shoulders of foreign tourist/travel agencies that advertise both the RoC and the north on an equal footing, mentioning only the bare minimum about the prospect of crossing, without talking about the true nature of the status quo and the political situation.
I always wondered what goes through the tourists’ minds when they are asked to show their passports to cross to the occupied areas, when they don’t know about the occupation? Don’t they think it’s bizarre or weird? Don’t they question it at all?
Few people know and less care tbh. I realize that sounds flippant, but it’s the truth.
Tourists typically come for the beaches, for the sun, to relax, to party, to forget about their own troubles. The last thing they want to do is immerse themselves in a 50 year old conflict that is difficult to understand and seems from another era entirely…
Cyprus is dividend
Well, without shaming anyone: not the kind of tourists that Cyprus attracts.
Ξεχνώ
From my direct experience , a considerable amount of british tourists, got no idea where they are. Many times I was greeted with a traditional “ola segnior” . Or they express they admiration with ” here in Greece/Turkey it’s .. ”
Usually the Germans or Russians they are aware of the Cyprus problem. I guess it’s a matter of personal interest about the place you visit
I mean people still visit occupied Palestine and it’s impossible to not know of that apartheid lol. I don’t think it’s common sense to understand where your money actually goes and make a conscious decision as to whether you do support that. Especially not with the Brits. Taxes were going towards paying “reparations” for slave masters until 2015. I have hope that if people actually knew how much their money enabled horrible things, they might think twice. But, it’s hard to maintain that optimism. People generally don’t care about shit that doesn’t immediately affect them.
This is more in response to other comments now:
That being said, Turkish speaking Cypriots DO need money. We are embargoed and we cannot survive independently which is a conscious decision by RoC. It’s Turkey that needs to be boycotted, and in a way that does not victimize civilians. Plenty oppose their dictatorship in the same way the majority of Turkish speaking Cypriots oppose their colonisation. It’s simply far more nuanced than most people allow space to acknowledge.
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Based on my local facebook group and my experience in three hostels in Cyprus so far – mostly they’ve heard the word “conflict” but other than that they don’t know shit and call it “Turkish Cyprus”
There’s also a British FB group about Cyprus where it is forbidden to use the word “occupied” to not cause any negative connotations so… how would they know?
Yesterday I’ve met a guy from New York who told me he fell in love with Cyprus because there are no problems, no politics, no controversy
Most foreigners I have met on airplanes don’t know. They think it’s the Northern part of Cyprus. They advertise it as such. It’s duplicitous and disgusting.
It comes as no surprise and it’s partially our fault. When the tourism industry is based on just the physical beauty of the island, the nightlife and the pleasant weather, there is little incentive for most tourists to ever care about the local history or culture. Does anyone know about the history or culture of the Bahamas? What about the Maldives? Cyprus as a tourist destination has a lot more in common with those than we’d like to believe.
Cyprus has such a rich history and traditions and we undersell them completely. The result is the average tourist being as clueless about Cyprus the place as much as they are for Cyprus the country and its politics.
Of course I understand this stance in part. There is a danger that if you openly say on every piece of your promotional material that you are under military occupation and there is an unresolved conflict, people might reconsider visiting. However, going from being extremely vocal about it to just passingly mentioning it to the point of tourists being clueless is totally unwarranted.
And last but not least, a great burden of responsibility falls on the shoulders of foreign tourist/travel agencies that advertise both the RoC and the north on an equal footing, mentioning only the bare minimum about the prospect of crossing, without talking about the true nature of the status quo and the political situation.
I always wondered what goes through the tourists’ minds when they are asked to show their passports to cross to the occupied areas, when they don’t know about the occupation? Don’t they think it’s bizarre or weird? Don’t they question it at all?
Few people know and less care tbh. I realize that sounds flippant, but it’s the truth.
Tourists typically come for the beaches, for the sun, to relax, to party, to forget about their own troubles. The last thing they want to do is immerse themselves in a 50 year old conflict that is difficult to understand and seems from another era entirely…
Cyprus is dividend
Well, without shaming anyone: not the kind of tourists that Cyprus attracts.
Ξεχνώ
From my direct experience , a considerable amount of british tourists, got no idea where they are. Many times I was greeted with a traditional “ola segnior” . Or they express they admiration with ” here in Greece/Turkey it’s .. ”
Usually the Germans or Russians they are aware of the Cyprus problem. I guess it’s a matter of personal interest about the place you visit
I mean people still visit occupied Palestine and it’s impossible to not know of that apartheid lol. I don’t think it’s common sense to understand where your money actually goes and make a conscious decision as to whether you do support that. Especially not with the Brits. Taxes were going towards paying “reparations” for slave masters until 2015. I have hope that if people actually knew how much their money enabled horrible things, they might think twice. But, it’s hard to maintain that optimism. People generally don’t care about shit that doesn’t immediately affect them.
This is more in response to other comments now:
That being said, Turkish speaking Cypriots DO need money. We are embargoed and we cannot survive independently which is a conscious decision by RoC. It’s Turkey that needs to be boycotted, and in a way that does not victimize civilians. Plenty oppose their dictatorship in the same way the majority of Turkish speaking Cypriots oppose their colonisation. It’s simply far more nuanced than most people allow space to acknowledge.