Page 18 - 2019 ACTA Directory

ACTA
A brief history of the Association of Cyprus Travel Agents
«Πολλών δ’ανθρώπων ιδεν άστεα και νόον έγνω.» Ομήρου Οδύσσεια α, 3
«Many were the men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned.»
Homer Odyssey a,3
Homer the poet of all times in his description of the main hero of his epic «Odyssey» sketches out the desires and inner feelings of people of all times.
The Association of Cyprus Travel Agents (ACTA) is predominantly the non-governmental organization that monitors all local and international developments concerning the issues of tourism and travel and performs responsible policy to rationalize these forward.
ACTA incorporates the majority of Cyprus Travel Agents and Tour Operators, who represent nearly all foreign tourism companies and organizations cooperating with our country.
Official recognition and affirmation of the responsible position of ACTA and its important role, is the fact that it has been designated, by legislation, as the License Authority for Cypriot Tour Operators.
ACTA completed 60 years since its founding in 1954 and has emerged throughout this period as the organization which establish the solid foundations of the Cyprus Tourism and travel with its vision, planning and responsible behavior.
From its first days ACTA insisted on an orderly development and upgrading of the tourism industry and had been pressing for the establishment of a regulatory body for the tourist trade. It is clearly recorded in the minutes of ACTA Special General Meeting of September 1960, less than a month after the official Act of Independence of the Cyprus Republic, that the Association presented to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry the need for an Advisory Committee to the Tourist Development Office of the Government and for proper re- classification of existing hotels and regular inspection of all places of tourist interest and use. ACTA also emphasized the need for appropriate tourist legislation, providing, inter alia, for conditions and prerequisites under which a Travel Agent may be considered and officially registered as an approved Licensed Agent.
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For better planning and management the need for a tourism regulating body was highlighted and the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) was eventually formed in 1973 by Government legislation.
In 1974 immediately after the catastrophe of the Turkish invasion and the occupation of a large part of Cyprus, ACTA joined the membership of the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) which offered to ACTA full secretariat facilities in the Chamber offices. Capitalizing on CCCI membership, ACTA achieved upgraded recognition both at national and international field. In the same year The Association was fully established as a legal body and in the