TRNC tourism workers: Power cuts threaten hotels with losses of millions of dollars

The TRNC Tourism Workers Platform said that power outages in Northern Cyprus were no longer merely a technical problem: the cuts are affecting hotels, tourist facilities and coastal restaurants, while technical failures at major establishments could result in losses of millions of dollars and hundreds of millions of lira.

In a statement, the platform, which brings together tourism industry workers, noted that the outages are also disrupting daily life: air conditioners, refrigerators, water pumps and the internet stop working. Children struggle to cope with the heat, the elderly suffer, and those who depend on electric medical devices live in constant anxiety.

The platform described tourism as one of the TRNC’s main sources of income: hotels, rural guesthouses and coastal restaurants bring the country foreign currency, tax revenue and jobs for thousands of people. Farmers, butchers, fishermen, transport operators and suppliers depend on the industry: when a hotel’s operations are disrupted, local producers receive fewer orders, while transport operators have less work.

The platform also highlighted the thousands of employees living in staff accommodation at tourist facilities: outages affect not only the comfort of guests, but also the income and daily lives of the workers themselves and their families.

In the platform’s view, the presence of generators at major facilities does not make outages acceptable: a generator is an emergency power system, not an alternative to the state’s energy policy. Frequent and sudden outages wear out the generators themselves, as well as electronics, refrigeration equipment and kitchens, while declining company profits slow investment and staff hiring.

The platform called for long-term solutions: clearing the way for solar energy, increasing investment in energy storage, modernizing the electricity grid and expanding generation capacity. “Our issue is not just electricity. It is a question of quality of life, the economy and the level of civilization. You cannot manage a crisis in the dark, and prosperity cannot be created by distributing darkness,” the statement said.