Turkish tourism declined sharply in 2016 with 25.352 million foreign visitors, marking a 30% decline from 31 million the previous year, according to tourism ministry data.
The number of Russian visitors thus decreased by 76.2% over the entire year, plunging to 866,256 tourists compared to around 2.8 million in 2015, a somewhat lighter decline after normalization between Ankara and Moscow.
Despite a decline of around 35% in the number of arrivals from Europe, Germany has become the main source of tourism to Turkey with 3.890 million visitors.
Georgia took second place with 2.206 million tourists, followed by the United Kingdom (1.711 million), according to the ministry.
The megacity of Istanbul, one of the most popular destinations in Turkey’s cultural offering, remained a hub for the sector with 9.217 million visitors but quite far from its 2015 record which recorded the arrival of 11.842 million tourists.
Sector revenue declined to $22.107 billion in 2016 from $31.464 billion the year before, a drop of 29.7% or more than $9.35 billion in months.
The Turkish tourism industry has been hit hard since 2015 by a series of deadly attacks, by the failed coup attempt in July and by the worst diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Moscow following the in-flight destruction in November 2015 of a Russian bomber by the Turkish air force for violating Turkish airspace.
The two countries normalized their relations last June and Moscow lifted the sanctions imposed, since this incident, on the Turkish tourism sector with the return of the first Russian charters last September.
Source: http://jourhui.ma/monde/turquie-le-tourisme-en-forte-chute-en-2016
