Turkey, which attracted a record 37 million foreign visitors as recently as 2014, declaring its ambitions to become the world’s top visitor destination, is now watching its tourism industry, which accounts for more than 4.5 per cent of a £570billion economy, teeter on the brink.
Last weekend saw the fourth terrorist attack in three months, a bomb in Istanbul’s main pedestrianised shopping avenue, Istiklal Street, which killed five. This year has already seen two attacks in the city, as well as in Ankara. These outrages have been variously blamed on Islamic State operatives from neighbouring Syria and on Kurdish dissidents currently embroiled in a vicious conflict with government forces in the southeast, a region Britain’s Foreign Office now advises against for all but essential travel.
“I’ve been bringing visitors to the country since the 1980s,” says Ghislain Sireilles of Cachet Travel, specialists in Turkey, Greece and the Canary Islands. “Turkey was awful for us during the Gulf Crisis in 1991, but it’s much worse now.”
Nor is the threat of terrorism the only problem. Tensions with Russia, which accounted for more than 4 million visitors in 2014, have spiralled since Ankara shot down a fighter jet belonging to its historic enemy late last year; Moscow responded by promptly banning all Russian charter flights to Turkey, effectively wiping out Turkey’s second largest overseas market.
Other nationalities have been further put off by the migrant crisis, with the bodies of drowned refugees, among them high-profile tragedies like three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, washing up on Turkey’s prime tourist beaches around Bodrum. Last year saw the number of Italians visitng Turkey fall by 27 per cent, and the number of Japanese by 40 per cent.
January’s tourism statistics show a 6.44 per cent fall on last year, from 1.25million to 1.17million.
The country is heading into a perfect storm, but the winds have already started blowing, with hotels reporting bookings down as much as 70 per cent.
While the collapse in visitor numbers is especially acute in Antalya and other resorts popular with Russians, other areas are also expected to suffer. UK holidaymakers, traditionally Turkey’s third biggest market with more than 2.5 million annual visitors, are beginning to dry up, with Turkey specialists Anatolian Sky reporting bookings for January, the biggest month for sales, down by half. A top UK escorted tour operator even conceded that it didn’t confirm a single passenger for Turkey during January.
