A most recent picture of Turkish tourism after downed jet crisis in 2016

Tourism sector is one of the major sources of revenue for Turkey to bring in revenues from abroad. There is no doubt it experienced a tough period following the downed Russian airplane conflict damaging the relations between two countries. Luckily, both governments succeeded to repair the broken relations and the Turkish government spent considerable effort to boost the performance of the local tourism sector heavily depending on incoming Russian tourists.

It is reported however that despite the measures taken, the tourism sector shrank by about 30 percent in 2016. The total size reached 22.1 billion dollars and as compared to 2015, the loss of income in tourism was 9.4 billion dollars. This is mainly considered to be due to the loss of foreign tourists (from Russia in specific). It is not possible however to talk about a promising picture as far as the local market is concerned, either.

Based on surveys, the average number of tourists varies between 6-6.5 million people. Experts mention that that the coup attempt in 2016 and the subsequent cancellation of leaves for civil servants caused a period of uncertainty in the sector which consequently led to major revenue losses in local tourism industry. It is forecasted that the number of people who were not able to go on holiday in the domestic market in 2016 was over 500 thousand. The experts hope this will convert back into demand in 2017.

Another question is “What is the expectation for the domestic market in 2017?”… Will postponed festivals be realized? It is observed that cautious entrepreneurs/professionals prefer to concentrate on the local market as the capacity from foreign markets seems to have shrunk. On the other hand, the picture will certainly be much more clear, based on this year’s bookings. However, the sector currently seems to be 10 percent behind the previous year despite a big capacity.