Opening a travel agency in Cyprus.
Opening a travel agency in Cyprus.
Cyprus is an ideal destination for EU citizens to open a licensed travel agency due to the favourable conditions, low license fee and low cost of living in general.
The licensing authority is the Deputy Ministry of Tourism.
The prospective applicant must establish a limited liability company and use that to apply for the licences.
The key requirements are:
- The company must be run by a qualified manager with proven experience in the tourism sector.
- It must rent self contained offices in Cyprus at least 20sq.m.
- The company must employee at least 2 employees, one of them can be the manager
- It should deposit a guarantee payment of €15,000 is required by way of bank guarantee.
- There is a licence fee of €400 for the first two years is paid in advance.
Qualifications of the manager.
- he or she must have graduated a School of Tourist Occupations or must have a university degree in tourism;
- if he or she does not a university degree, then at least 3 years of experience in tourism are required;
- if the conditions above are not met, the applicant is required to submit proof of at least 7 years in the tourism field;
- the applicant must also have knowledge of at least one foreign language often used in tourism (such as English);
- the applicant must also have a clean criminal record at the time the application is filed;
- the applicant must not be prohibited by a judicial order to occupy the position of company manager.
For more information on setting up a Cyprus based travel agency contact our law firm by clicking here.