Turkey: Tourist arrivals increase as British and Russians return

Tourism arrivals rose 144.9 percent year on year to 5.01 million in June, according to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. January-June arrivals were 16.4 million, up 185.7% year-on-year. Visitors from the UK rose from 10,548 annual visitors in June to approximately 454 thousand. Arrivals from Russia rose from 175,362 per year to 602 thousand in June. The arrivals from Germany increased by 204% to 718,838 visitors.

The closure of borders, travel restrictions and other bans due to the coronavirus epidemic that started in China in 2020 and spread all over the world caused the pandemic effects of tourism to be felt and the collapse effect to be experienced. With the spread of the vaccine in 2021, the easing of the effect of the pandemic and the relaxation of bans, tourism experienced a significant revival in the summer season. Accordingly, there was a significant increase in the number of foreign visitors in 2021 in the distribution by years, approaching the 2019 levels. While the current reservations include the Russia-Ukraine war, we will probably be watching the effect of the high number of foreign visitors during the summer months.

When the effect level of the retrospective political dynamics regarding the current Russian crisis is examined, it will be necessary to compare it with the reductions in important breaking times such as the 2014-15 Russia-Ukraine crisis and the 2015-16 Russian aircraft crisis.

Between 2014-15, the number of Russian visitors decreased by 18.5%. However, the real decline took place between 2015-16, when the plane crisis with Russia and relations with Russia became tense. While there was a 76% decrease in 2016 compared to the previous year, the share of Russia in total tourism revenues decreased to 3%. With the normalization of relations, it recovered in 2017 and there was a serious base effect in this period. The decline in 2020 is already pandemic related and has a negative impact overall.

Kaynak Enver Erkan / Tera Yatırım

Hibya Haber Ajansı