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tourists, marking a 22% y/y drop.
Meanwhile, national statistics office TUIK reported Turkey’s tourism revenues as down more than 11% y/y to $4.1bn in January-March.
Of this revenue, around 81% came from foreign nationals while the remaining 19% was generated from Turks who reside abroad.
Also in the first quarter, foreign visitors on average spent $727, up from $697 a year earlier.
Each year, on average, 10mn to 12mn Turks take a holiday using a Turkish hotel but a 35% decline in this ball park figure is forecast for 2020​, Kaan Karayal, head of online booking company tatilsepeti.com, ​said​ on May 11.
“The government has asked hotels to keep 50% to 60% of beds empty and nearly 50% of hotels won’t open this summer. But, despite those unfavourable conditions, I do not expect hoteliers to slash prices. Hotels will engage in strong competition to lure visitors but this won’t lead to lower prices,” he said.
Domestic tourism activity in Turkey is likely to contract by around 30% this year, ​according​ to the head of a major local tour operator, Jolly Tour’s Mete Vardar.
Refunds paid this year to date by Jolly Tour to customers for cancelled reservations amounted to Turkish lira 160mn (€21.5mn) and the company was seeking bank loans to cover payments, he added.
Foreign tourist visits to Turkey are not expected to resume to any significant degree before September or October, meaning the FX revenues of local tourism companies are likely to drop by as much as 70% this year​, ​according​ to the head of business group TURSAB, Firuz Baglikaya.
“We have not yet fully assessed the damage to the industry from the [coronavirus] COVID-19 outbreak, but we estimate that the FX revenue loss of local companies will be around 60% to 70% this year,” he said.
Baglikaya alo predicted a 40% to 50% contraction in domestic tourism activity this year.
International flights to Turkey are likely to resume in mid-June, but the foreign passengers will be businesspeople not tourists, he said.
“All measures taken against the virus will discourage people from travelling. People will be tested for the virus before flying and at the airport when they arrive. There will be tests at hotels when people check in. Nobody wants to go through all this. Yet, I still believe people will start travelling in September or October,” Baglikaya said.
A true revival of the domestic tourism market would not occur until 2021, he observed.
Turkey’s tourism revenues, a major source of hard currency, increased by 17% from the previous year to $34.5bn in 2019.
A survey carried out by TURSAB in late March among 1,400 tourism agencies in Turkey showed 80% of respondents reporting a decline of 75% or more in their revenues.
52​ TURKEY Country Report​ June 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com