The number of foreign visitors arriving in Turkey totaled 4.24 million in the first quarter of the year, a 22.1% year-on-year drop amid worldwide travel restriction due to the coronavirus pandemic, Culture and Tourism data showed Thursday.
The country has also seen a 11.4% decline in its tourism income in the January-February period, according to the national statistical body.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China last December, tourism and aviation sectors took a backseat due to restrictions on travel.
Turkey’s flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) on Tuesday announced it was extending the suspension of all flights until May 28.
COVID-19 has spread to at least 185 countries and regions across the world. Europe and the U.S. are currently the worst-hit. Turkey has 117,589 coronavirus cases, while the death toll in the country stands at 3,081.
On a global scale, the virus has infected more than 3.2 million people and caused over 227,800 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In the first quarter, Istanbul remained Turkey’s top tourist spot, attracting nearly 55.5% of all visitors – around 2.35 million.
Edirne, in northwestern Turkey, which borders both Bulgaria and Greece, saw the second-highest number of foreigners, with 540,261 in the January-March period. The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya followed with 10.18% or over 431,653 foreign visitors.
Some 2.98 million visitors came to Turkey via air while 1.16 million arrived via motorways, 87,712 by sea and 3,503 on railways.
Bulgarians accounted for over 9.3% or nearly 393,220 of the visitors, followed by Germans with 8.4%, or 356,261 tourists, and Georgians with some 7.74%, or 327,910 people.
In March, the number of foreign visitors dropped by 67.8% to stand at 718,097, down from 2.23 million in the same month last year.
In the first month of 2020, the tourist number hit its highest January figures with 1.8 million foreign visitors. In 2019, more than 45 million foreigners entered the country, up from nearly 39.5 million in 2018.
Tourism income drops
The country’s tourism income totaled around $4.1 billion in the first three months, an 11.4% year-on-year decline, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said Thursday.
“While 80.6% of this income (excluding GSM roaming and marina service expenditures) was obtained from foreign visitors, 19.4% was obtained from citizens residing abroad,” TurkStat said.
The number of departing visitors also slipped 15% to 5.6 million during the same period, 82.2% foreign and 17.8% representing Turkish citizens residing abroad.
The data revealed that average expenditure per capita was $727 from January to March.
It noted that 86.9% of the total tourism income came from individual expenditures – $3.56 billion – while package tour spending stood at $536 million during the same period.
Food and beverages took the lion’s share of visitors’ spending with $962.5 million, followed by international transport’s $679 million in the first quarter.
“In this quarter, foreign visitors visited Turkey mostly for ‘travel, entertainment, sportive and cultural activities’ with 59.9%,” TurkStat said.
Some 1.74 million Turkish citizens traveled abroad in the three-month period, declining 13.6% on an annual basis, the data showed.
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