Adding up to “Cyprus, best holiday destination”, What will YOU do about it?

By Elena Juganaru Andreou

Today I decided to challenge all Cypriots….and I created these three hashtags #CyprusBestHolidayDestination #AmazingCyprusHospitality and #ExperiencingCyprus

It’s funny how I jump into things lately or maybe better said how things jump into me. Yesterday it happened to see one of #Virardi’s best videos, “Why Network?” and right after I got a notification that Gary Vaynerchuk published a new article “My Content is a Mindset!” (ok I have to admit, I am magnetized by these people’s mindset!!)

…And then I got an invitation for a barbeque dinner from a Georgian Priest. You may all be asking what a barbeque dinner invitation has to do with Cyprus as a tourism destination or experiencing Cyprus or with Gary Vee’s mindset or Virardi’s network?

Let me tell you why we were invited and how we met the Priest and his family from Georgia and then you will understand!

Saturday late afternoon I was reading on my veranda and thinking that it is getting dark and I should go inside when my attention was captured by some anxious kids’ voices. Looking that way, I saw two priests and six kids!!They were in the street and although I couldn’t understand what they were saying I could feel that they were very worry. One of the priests, as he saw me, started to talk to me. He tried to explain to me, even though his Greek was not very good, that by chance he found this big family at the airport, and that they have booked with booking.com the apartment across mine, but nobody came to the airport to pick them up as they were expecting, and they didn’t know how they will get in that apartment since the only phone number that they had was a mobile number which was turned off.

I could see that the kids were tired, and the Georgian priest and his wife were really nervous. In the meantime, it was getting dark and the priest that brought them until there told me that he had to leave because the time of the church service was approaching and he had to be there, and he begged me to help the family.

I live in a tourist area and let me tell you that I help tourists almost every day, but how I could help this family? So I started to think like a mom….the kids were tired.. maybe hungry…so first I invited them inside and prepared something for the kids to eat. Then I made coffee for the parents and started to make phone calls. I called everywhere I could think of…even the police! Nobody could help!!

How can you find a booking.com agent when you have no name, on the booking.com site was written only the second floor of the building but no apartment number, and only a mobile phone number which was off. I could see that the people were very concerned, tired and with a big question in their eyes “Now what?”

As the time was passing and it was already late evening, my husband was trying to make them feel better and told them not to worry about the night, they could stay at our house for the night and tomorrow we will find a solution!

Then, I said to myself: come on Elena there must be a way, you can think of something! And then I went to the opposite building and started to ring the bells and tried to talk to someone that was living there. I found someone that was willing the give me the phone number of the administrator of the building. I called him and explain the situation and asked him if he knows which apartment on the second floor are rented with booking.com. He told me that he doesn’t know but he will give me all the owners’ apartment of the second floor: they were 6, and two of them they live in England.

The situation was getting more complicated. I said: Ok…I will call all these numbers…and see.

To make the story short, after I called all of them and talked to people that they could not understand why I was calling on a Saturday night with out knowing them and telling the story 6 times I found the owner of the apartment!!!!

Halleluiah …but wait! The problem was not solved! I asked the owner if she had other phone numbers of the agent since the one that was on the site was off. She told me that she has, and she will contact her and get back to me!

After some time, the agent contacted me. There are some moments in life when you become grateful for things that in some other circumstances you would not even think! I had the feeling that I performed a miracle…but unfortunately like all miracles it was not for long. She explained to me that their reservation was cancelled because they didn’t reply to her confirmation email….When I asked her to help to find the people a place to stay she told me straight  away that most probably it will be much expensive and out of the town. To take them to any hotel was out of question, I realized that were too many kids involved that they would have to pay a fortune and part of their stress was because economically they were not prepared to take the cost!

After an hour the agent called me and she told me that she found a house in Pervolia, in the tourist area and that she will send someone by car to take them there. I asked my husband to go with them and make sure that everything will be in order.

But tourist area this time of the year is not the same place like in the summer! Now there is almost nobody there! No restaurants open, no kiosks open…no people in most of the houses. When my husband saw the situation he immediately realized that was to late to find any supermarkets open and the people will wake up in the morning in an empty kitchen with six kids to feed, so searching for a kiosk he found milk and some kind of bread. And then he cameback home and started to get anything that could be eaten for breakfast, corn-flakes, jam…etc.

As we woke up the next morning we thought the same thing: were the people ok? How will they go to a supermaket, etc.

We decided with my husband that we had to go and see how we could help further….we realized that from the vacation of their dream in Cyprus , waking up in an unknown  place, with nothing around to eat, no car and six kids it will turn in a nightmare….

When we arrived there, we found the priest outside holding his head in his hands and like praying. When he saw us a huge smile replaced the desperation on his face. He told us that the electricity went out, he couldn’t find the point where to check, there was not electricity panel in the house, their phones were not working and they didn’t have hot water. So, no electricity, no hot water, no car, no phones and six kids around. I didn’t want to be in his shoes for nothing in the world. My husband told him straight away not to worry, we will find a solution….and we started again to call to find the agent, to give us the owner of the house phone number to solve the problems…..

After a few hours and many phone calls we found the electricity panel which was in another building in that complex, we found the owner and solved the problem with the hot water and took the priest to the supermarket to get what they needed.

When we left from there, after making sure we were connected with messenger through wi fi since they could not call normally with their phones and we told them to call us at any time if they needed anything, we could see that they were seeing us like their friends!

Yesterday, they called me to invite us for barbeque as a way to say thank you.

That’s how we had last night a great Georgian experience in Cyprus!!!

I am sure that our new friends will remember this trip for the rest of their life and they will always associate it with the amazing Cypriot hospitality!

I live close to the airport and I helped many times tourists in Cyprus, sometimes giving them simple information, sometimes dropping them to the airport by my car, sometimes helping them to find their hotel.

I enjoyed many times seeing the surprise on their faces how someone is willing to get out of his way and not do it for money. Many of them offered me to pay and being surprised when I told them that I don’t want any money, and I hope that they enjoyed their holiday!

I woke up in the morning and had this feeling…of being grateful that I could help and change someone’s experience! And then I thought that people usually write and post about bad things….so that how the bad things get viral…but to less people writing about good things!

Maybe was Gary Vee #mindset, maybe was Virardi Networking that made me think that I will write this story, and I challenge people to talk about Cyprus Best Holiday Destination, and publish with these hashtags…

A few years ago when doing a research about Dental Tourism I found out that although in Cyprus we have a very high level of dentistry and we are a dream island for tourism, Cyprus actually doesn’t have Dental Tourism. We have a few famous churches and monasteries and we could also have Religious Tourism, but again nobody promotes it!!

This summer I had the surprise of my life when I heard from some friends from abroad that one of our neighbours promotes one of his holiday destination as the place where Aphrodite was born. Come on people the Greek goddess was born outside Greece!!!! It is hilarious….but it seems that there are very clever people out there that they found the way to market everything…and we have all of these great places around us and we didn’t find the way to promote them! Maybe we should ask those people to show us the way!