Is the Turkish Tourism Industry to face a likely crisis in the coming years?

Turkey has taken some remarkably giant steps in the tourism industry to become one of the major destinations in Europe and the World, in recent years.

Among factors that have contributed to this outstanding success we can name increase in number of beds, improvement in service quality and certainly a much better marketing effort.

Then again Turks have gained much more experience in their relations with foreigners visiting their country. They are well aware money coming this way is a great support even in their daily earnings, such as markets, retailers, gift shops and certainly hotels etc.

We are not to forget the impact of a trend in favor of Turkey in the last years, in specific as many holidaymakers started to look for some new destinations other than usual spots such as Spain and Greece.

Looking at the issue from the government point of view, the contribution of the tourism revenues to the Turkish current account deficit has been a life saver for the country and has certainly put the government in expectation of an even stronger support to come from this source.

When we consider however the strongest market of Turkey is certainly Europe and this continent has been going through major economic difficulties for some time now, the question is if Turkey will be able to make this success sustainable.

The answer to this question is certainly “unclear” and nobody can come up with a “YES” reply. The reason is the light at the end of the tunnel for Europe is not easy to see at the moment.

This being the case Turkey is obliged to seek new markets to make up for the loss it might incur due to the crisis in Europe. The reason is Europeans will certainly cut down on their leisure and holiday expenses when they will be looking for money to take home food (like is the case with Greece at the moment).

Turkey, being aware of this unpleasant but solid fact should immediately start opening new markets in south American countries such as Brasil, Argentina and others in the Far East such as Japan, China, India, Korea etc, not to forget ones with high average income such as Australia, New Zealand etc.

The Ministry of Tourism has been quite active recently and we believe they would strat considering to take steps in this direction by organizing new exhibition both locally and participating in worldwide known tourism shows, in specific.

If necessary actions are taken now the Turkish tourism industry will have the opportunity of continuing to contribute to the economy of the country in a substantial manner, as it has done recently

Editor, BTT
11.02.2012