Turkey sees 35% decline in Russian tourist arrivals

PanARMENIAN.Net - The number of Russian travelers heading for Turkey for organized tourism has dropped by 35% in the first seven months of 2016 against the same period last year.

A further 15% drop was registered in the number of German arrivals, and 6.8% less tourists travelled to the Muslim country from Great Britain.

Besides, the number of independent tourists spending holidays in Antalya has also declined, dropping by 48% from January-August 2016 compared with figures of the same period last year.

Last year Russians accounted for about 5m of Turkey’s 40m international tourists, according to the WTTC. In May, Turkey saw just 41,000 Russian tourists, down 91.8 per cent from the same month last year, according to the Turkish government.

Turkey has seen an acceleration in the rate of contraction of its tourism sector. UNWTO data suggest international tourist arrivals fell 9.9 per cent year on year in the first three months of 2016 (with a 16.8 per cent drop in revenues), exacerbating a 2.6 per cent slide in the previous quarter, as the industry was hit by a catalogue of woes.

More timely figures from Turkey’s ministry of culture and tourism, however, point to a 34.7 per cent year-on-year slump in arrivals to 2.5m in May.