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Revised April, 2024 – Resource, Turkey iResidence
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TOURISM SECTOR DID NOT GET WHAT IT WANTED FROM 2021, THE EYES ARE ON NEXT YEAR
Tourism revenues and the number of visitors to Turkey fell far behind this year before the pandemic. Prospects in the tourism sector are in 2022.
Although the tourism sector entered 2021 with high hopes after 2020, the start year of the pandemic, the first half of the year was spent with travel bans caused by the corona virus and the future remained far from the pre-2020 period due to the impact of uncertainties such as delta, omicron variants on the future.
The Turkish lira against the US dollar since the beginning of the year due to the depreciation of around 45 per cent, Turkey, Bulgaria, despite the increase in the number of daily visitors from neighboring countries such as Iran, the rules of travel due to uncertainty about the continuation of long-stay tourist visits has not increased as expected.
According to the border entry and exit statistics published by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of foreigners arriving in Turkey was 22 million 819 thousand 749 in the first 11 months of the year. Accordingly, the number of foreigners coming to Turkey increased by 90 percent compared to the same period last year. However, compared to the same period of 2019, the number of foreigners coming to Turkey was 47 percent less.
According to the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute, in the first three quarters of 2021, Turkey’s tourism revenue amounted to 16 billion 850 million dollars. revenue for the first three quarters of 2019 amounted to 26 billion 634 million dollars. Accordingly, Turkey’s tourism revenue in the first 9 months was 37 percent behind 2019, the year before the pandemic.
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TURKEY’S TARGET IS 29 MILLION TOURISTS
Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet announced the target of Turkey’s tourist numbers this year as 29 million in the 2022 budget negotiations of the Turkish Grand National Assembly the previous week, and announced that they expect revenues of $ 24 billion from these tourists.
“The travel bans initiated with the pandemic have negatively affected Turkish tourism in our country as well as all over the world. In Turkey, our expectation for this year is 29 million tourists with an 83 percent increase in the number of visitors and $ 24 billion in revenue with a 100 percent increase in revenue.”
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OPTIMISTIC STATEMENT FROM THE INDUSTRY
Speaking about the issue at a meeting in Bursa last week, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Travel Agencies Association (TÜRSAB), said that the tourism sector, which has been struggling with the pandemic for the last two years, has now entered a period of compensating for losses.
“We have finally turned our faces to a hopeful future.” who said, continued his speech as follows:
“Although the Omicron variant continues to cause concern at the moment, the spread of the vaccine and the introduction of permits for the use of drugs to be used to treat Covid-19 increase our hopes that 2022 will be a better year. We have entered into a process where we will focus on new goals and prepare our sector for a better tomorrow. we are aiming for 45 million visitors and $35 billion in tourism revenue in 2022.”
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