Turkiye eyes travel to boost revenues

ANKARA — Turkiye is looking forward to tapping into key summer tourism industry revenues to prop up its ailing economy as foreign tourists have begun to flow to sunny Turkish holiday resorts, industry professionals said.

The crucial industry, which employs 2.6 million workers, generates billions of dollars each year, offering much-needed respite for the economy.

Turkiye's tourism income rose to $46.3 billion last year, a surge of more than 50 percent from $30 billion in 2021, according to official data released in late January.

"In Turkiye, tourism has become an indispensable sector for the economy because it generates much-needed foreign currency," Kaan Sahinalp, the Turkiye representative of German travel giant TUI, told Xinhua.

"The tourism industry is vital for the hard currency that it brings about for the economy as a whole," he said, adding it helps to reduce the country's substantial current account deficit.

He said he is hopeful the industry would meet the government's target of 60 million foreign arrivals and $60 billion in earnings this year.

'Serious advantage'

Meanwhile, Sahinalp pointed out that the weakening of the Turkish currency would give Turkiye "a serious advantage "compared to its regional competitors in terms of prices.

On Wednesday, the lira slipped by over 7 percent against the greenback, trading at 23 lira against the US dollar, the biggest drop in years. The lira has been weakening since 2018.

In the first quarter of 2023, Turkiye's tourism income soared by 32.3 percent to $8.7 billion, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute report on April 30.

Local Turkish officials are particularly hoping for a good tourism season after devastating earthquakes in February claimed the lives of nearly 51,000 people and led to many hotels along the Aegean and Mediterranean coast hosting displaced survivors for months.

The number of Russian holidaymakers may drop due to the Ukraine crisis and rising costs, said Recep Yavuz, chairman of the Antalya City Council's Tourism Working Group.

But in Sahinalp's view, this is only temporary and Russian travelers will arrive en masse on the Mediterranean coast in the near future.

Xinhua