If Romanians fail to harness the country’s tourism opportunities, in Cyprus, the country where tourism is the leading economic activity, thousands of Romanians work in the hospitality industry.

Journalism graduate, waitress in Cyprus

The moment you step off the plane, on Hermes Airport in Larnaca, you can see that for Cypriots, attracting foreign tourists is almost a credo – you can see people dangling their keys offering lodging in their homes, or advertisements of accommodations showing their Easter break rates or tens of stores where everything is branded “Love Cyprus”. The country poured a jaw-dropping €50 million in a new passenger terminal at international standards that was completed in November 2009.

“After the facelift, the airport has the capacity to handle up to 9 million passengers, significantly above current air traffic. The annual average is 4-5 million passengers”, said Phoebe Katsouris (photo), chief executive of Cyprus Tourism Organization.

In the cluster of stores, coffee shops and restaurants in the shopping area of Cyprus’ largest airport – apart from Larnaca, Cyprus has another airport in Paphos, a city with around 54,000 inhabitants – there is a Costa Cofee shop, where to my surprise, the waitress is from Romania. “I came to Cyprus about six months ago, and for two weeks, I have been working here with another Romanian, at Costa Cofee. I graduated from the school of journalism in Romania, but I came to work here as waitress in Cyprus because I couldn’t find a job back in Romania”, says Ana. She added that hey boyfriend was still in Cyprus for more than three years, and works in constructions.

According to data from Cypriot immigration officials, around 5,000-6,000 Romanians work in Cyprus. “Romanians don’t have a good opinion about Cyprus, although they work here. And employers delay paychecks regularly”, the Roman