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9.1.5 Tourism sector news
The number of foreign tourists visiting Turkey crashed by 86% y/y to only 933,000 in July.
Foreign tourist arrivals previously plunged 99% y/y in April and May and 96% y/y in June.
In July, 199,000 German holidaymakers visited Turkey, down from 868,000 a year earlier, while the number of Ukrainian tourists declined to 153,000 from 228,000. Only 75,000 Britons visited the country in July versus 425,000 in the same month of 2019.
In the first half, Turkey hosted 5.4mn international tourists, down from 25mn in the same period of 2019.
“Turkey may welcome some 15mn foreign tourists this year if there is no setback in international air traffic,” said Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.
He was confident that the country’s tourism revenues would at least reach $11bn in 2020.
Turkey’s initial foreign tourist arrivals and tourism revenue targets for 2020 were 60mn and $40bn, respectively.
In January-June, only 444,000 foreign tourists visited Antalya.
Data from the tourism ministry showed that the number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey declined as much as 88% on an annual basis to 322,000 in the first half of the year.
Last year, Antalya welcomed a record 5.6mn Russian tourists, up from 4.8mn in 2018. In 2017, 3.8mn Russians vacationed in the city.
An Airbus A340 passenger aircraft that has been converted into Turkey’s largest airplane restaurant is on the sales block for Turkish lira 10,000,000 ($1.44mn), an Istanbul real estate agent has announced, according to an eturbonews report. The owner has invested $1.5mn dollars in the conversion.
Four cruise ships—the Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Inspiration, Pullmantur Monarch and Pullmantur Sovereign are in the early stages of dismantling in Aliaga, Turkey, Cruise Industry News reported.
Given the huge impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the cruise ship holidays industry, many cruise companies have sent their older ships to scrapyards for economic reasons.
9.1.6 Utilities sector news
It is clear that most of Turkey’s planned coal-fired power plants are not being constructed, according to Baran Bozoglu, chairperson of the country’s Chamber of Environmental Engineers.
Only 1.5 GW of the 31.7 GW of planned coal-power capacity is currently being built, Bozoglu said.
Despite generous support from the Turkish government, the country’s energy industry is experiencing a loan repayment crisis that places national banks at risk. A recent report by PwC Turkey noted that there are $12.8bn in unpaid foreign currency loans with a high risk of default in Turkey, the highest share of
53 TURKEY Country Report September 2020 www.intellinews.com
