The 19th East Mediterranean International Tourism and Travel Exhibition (EMITT) was held in Istanbul from 22-25th January.
North Cyprus was also represented at the fair alongside 71 other countries.
The Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Economy, Tourism, Culture and Sports Serdar Denktaş also attended the opening of the fair. Minister Denktaş responded to the questions from BRT and TAK reporters during his contacts at the fair.
Expressing the need to spreading and distributing tourism revenues, which are increasingly becoming monopolized, more evenly, Denktaş touched upon incentives given in the tourism sector.
Stating that the incentives for hotel investors will be given according to how much these establishments use local labour force and local products, he announced that a pilot scheme will be launched in Gazimağusa on the issue.
“If we see that tourism is the main source of revenue for our country then there will be no unemployment in North Cyprus. The 22 students studying at the Hotel Tourism Education Centre will be employed in the tourism sector,” Denktaş said.
Noting that North Cyprus receives most of its tourists from Turkey, he said that there was an increase in tourists from Scandinavian countries in 2014.
Stressing that tourism was going well in the country and that they were doing everything necessary to improve it further, Denktaş said that last year they had attended 13 fairs and that this figure will be going up to 17 this year.
