Sun International chases license for casino resort on Cyprus

Three firms would proceed to the second round of bidding once an expression-of-interest period ended on December 18, Tourism Minister Georgios Lakkotrypis said.

Reports have cited Malaysia’s Genting, Florida-based Hard Rock International, Cambodia’s NagaCorp and France’s Bouygues as the other bidders.

"We aim to grant the license by mid-2016 and it will come into effect from day one so the winning company will have every incentive to move quickly," Mr Lakkotrypis said on Wednesday .

Companies would be notified of the results of the expression-of-interest phase 45 days after the deadline. The license, for 30 years, 15 exclusive, also covers a "holistic" integrated type of resort that would be the first of its kind in Europe. "If market conditions show after 15 years there could be room for more such resorts, then, yes, we could grant more licenses."

The casino resort would target visitors from within a four-hour flight radius and "Russians are certainly one of the target markets", Mr Lakkotrypis said. The number of Russian visitors in Cyprus, which had been rising over the past few years, has dropped this year. "We’re trying to limit that decline to 20%," he said.

Russian visitor numbers fell 17% in the first 10 months of the year before declining to more than 19% in the year to date following the October 31 downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt that killed 224 people, Mr Lakkotrypis said.

With more instability in the region, the pace of the decline could ease again to about 17% by year end, he said. An 18% increase so far this year in UK visitors and a 35% rise in German tourists, traditionally Cyprus’s two main tourist source markets, were more than offsetting the Russian decline.

"We expect the number of Britons coming to Cyprus in 2015 to hit at least the 1-million mark."

Overall tourist numbers increased more than 7% in the January to October period compared with the same period last year, according to data from the Cyprus Statistical Service. Bloomberg

The license, which will run for 30 years, 15 of them exclusive, also covers a holistic integrated type of resort that will be the first of its kind in Europe.