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According to data from the Turkish Tourism Ministry, Turkey welcomed only 435 German tourists in April. In the first four months of the year, 357,000 Germans vacationed in Turkey, marking a 56% y/y decline.
Germany is in close contact with countries outside Europe, including Turkey, over when travel warnings put in place by Berlin due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic can be lifted, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on June 11.
German flag carrier Lufthansa plans to resume its flights to Turkey from Germany and Switzerland as of July, according to the airline’s Turkey manager.
On June 12, Switzerland-based testing and certification provider SGS said that the Turkish Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA), under the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, had given it authorisation to serve as a certification body for Turkey’s “Safe Tourism” certification programme.
Antalya last year hosted nearly 15mn international holidaymakers, which accounted for 33% of foreign visits paid to Turkey. In January-April this year, however, only 432,000 foreign tourists visited the province with the effects of the pandemic taking a huge toll on business.
Foreign tourist visits to Turkey hardly registered with the central statisticians in coronavirus-hit May, falling 99.26% y/y. Tourism ministry data released on June 22 showed there were just 29,829 such visits.
For the first five months of this year, the figure was 4.29mn, down 66.3% y/y.
In March, all international flights to and from Turkey were suspended until further notice as the country moved to contain its coronavirus outbreak. International flights were restarted on June 11.
9.1.6 Utilities sector news
Electricity consumption in Turkey collapsed by 17% y/y to 19.6bn kWh in coronavirus-troubled May after plunging 15% y/y to 19.1bn kWh in April, the lowest level recorded since 2013, BloombergHT reported on June 2.
Turkey’s industrial production and GDP data, produced by the country’s statistical institute TUIK, are unfortunately far from reliable, while the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data compiled by IHS Markit under the
62 TURKEY Country Report July 2020 www.intellinews.com
