Paramita Sarkar
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Israel’s war in Gaza and growing fears of an escalating crisis in the Middle East have dealt a major blow to wedding tourism.
Until last year, except for the pandemic period, hundreds of couples from Israel and Lebanon chose our country for civil weddings, combining them, in most cases, with a few days’ holiday for themselves and their guests.
The lion’s share of civil weddings of couples from Israel and Lebanon, which constitute a significant percentage of wedding tourism, is in the Municipality of Larnaca with more than half of the weddings performed annually coming from these two nationalities.
This year, however, there has been a significant decrease in demand compared to 2023.
According to data obtained from the Larnaca Municipality’s Civil Marriage Department, 281 civil marriages took place between the beginning of the year and June, compared to 425 in the same period last year.
The decrease is mainly due to Israelis, as 274 couples were married by June last year, while this year the number was 142.
There is also a decrease in demand from Lebanon since 49 marriages were performed in the same period last year, while this year it dropped to 39.
There is a clear decline in marriages because of the war. People have been affected by what is happening in these countries and there is also insecurity, as we hear every day about possible escalation.
This is preventing too many people from getting married, the municipal secretary, Andreas Louka, told our newspaper.
He said that despite the significant decrease in demand, these two countries continue to have the highest numbers of civil marriages in Larnaca Municipality.
It is obvious that we have to turn to other markets for civil weddings.
Slightly down, but for other reasons are meanwhile civil marriages in the Ayia Napa Municipality which before the pandemic was performing about 1,000 per year.
Most of the marriages in the area are between couples from Britain, which are down this year which is attributed to a reduction in their financial ability.
