Turkey Loses 470,000 Russian Tourists İn Six Months

– The loss in one of the largest tourism market of Turkey, Russian market, hit 470,000 visitors, with a significant fall in the first six months of 2015. Some 400,000 of this loss occurred in southern resort town of Antalya, the "capital of tourism".

In Antalya, the course of tourism industry has been raising concerns, due to devaluation and rouble crisis of Russia. Over the terror attacks and security alerts across Turkey, along with the tarnished image of the country in Europe, the market has encountered a significant fall.

According to tha data released by Antalya Provincial Directorate of Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of entry of Russian visitors to Antalya and Gazipaşa Airports has seen 7,284,000 in the region since August 15, 2015. Last year, this number has hit 7,720,000 entries, which concludes to a fall of 6 percent, thus 436,000 tourists this year against 2014.

On the other hand, regarding a period of 7 months between January and July, the number of German visitors rose, while Russian tourists kept falling, according to another data released by Touristic Hoteliers Association of the Mediterranean (AKTOB). Against the previous months, the downward trend in the Russian Market weakened.

The report shows that the leading tourism markets of western, northern and central European countries have faced a stagnation and regression in the period, while Antalya lost more than 400,000 tourists.

Since July where the industry has relatively recovered, Antalya reached a visitor flux of 6,220,762 for the period of seven months. Last year, Antalya has attracted 6,644,905 visitors, in the same period.

Market in Istanbul city, against the fall of other cities' tourism numbers, achieved to rise by 8.3 percent and attract 7 million people including transit passengers, in seven months. On the contrary, Aegean resort towns of Muğla and İzmir saw a downfall with 6.1 percent to 1.5 million visitors in Muğla, and with 9.9 percent to 643,000 visitors in İzmir.

Foreigner tourists fell to 4,123,000 to 4,335,000 by 4.89 percent in July, added the tourism report of AKTOB, declaring that this number dropped by 2.25 from 15,238,000 to 14,894,000.

In this same period, while German tourists exceeded 2,109,000 rose by 1.9, number of Russian visitors fell by 24.3 to 1,400,000, with a loss of 470,000 people, against the last year's rates that had hit 2 million tourists from Russia.

The relapse also marked the Scandinavian market excluding Finland, along with key markets of the U.K., France, Holland and Austria. On the contrary, in national markets of central and eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary, a recovery was spotted. The relapse also hit African, western Asian and some SAC countries, while Israel rates show a 25 percent decrease.

Along with southern Asian regions' market showing a growth of 13 percent, the leading attraction point of visitors from this region, Iran, also marked a growth of 8 percent. Iran market has seen a growth of 41 in 2014. For China, this number showed a growth of 61 percent and reached 144,000 visitors, against the 40 percent growth registered last year. - Antalya