Tourism in Turkey

Turkey, in which history, culture and experienced in touch with marvelous natural beauties, is one of the most precious tourism centers of the world sustaining these characteristics until today. Furthermore, Turkey is a privileged country with respect to its territories that characteristics of four seasons can be felt all the time, green forests, snowy mountains convenient for skiing sports, clean seas, beaches, thermal springs, hospitable human tissue and having one of the three famous kitchens of the world.

Tourism sector accelerated by globalization process has both negative ad positive impacts from different developments except for the results of the globalization. Several breakups experienced in Turkey that affected the tourism both negatively and positively. Tourism Promotion Law that is approved in 1982 can be accepted as the start point of these breakups, and different topics occupying the agenda of the last two years directly affected the tourism sector.

                                             Figure 1 Tourism Process of Turkey

When breakdown that affected the tourism sector of Turkey analyzed, mostly local/national developments and regional situations come to prominence in terms of frequency.

                Figure 2 Incoming Visitors (head count) to Turkey, Source: TUİK, 2016

In the last 15 years period, when the incoming number of tourists to Turkey is analyzed; 2001 Economic Crisis, 2003 Second Gulf War, 2009 Mortgage Crisis, 2010 The Arab Spring, 2013 Taksim – Gezi Park Events, 2015 Terror Attacks and Russian Crisis, 2016 Coup Attempt are seen to be significant breakdowns that draw attention. By looking at the data among these events, it can obviously be seen that 2015 Terror Attacks and 2016 Coup Attempt has a negative impact on the number of incoming tourists.

                       Figure 3 2015-2016 Turkish Tourism Data, Source: TUİK, 2016

Between the years of 2015 and 2016, it is observed that there is a parallelism of decreases in the number of visitors (-%25) and total income (-%30) and income per capita is relatively static.

In the year 2016, the biggest decrease among the countries sending tourists to Turkey is experienced in Russian Federation market with a decrease rate of %-76.26. Following this, the biggest decreases are experienced by Iraqi with a rate of %-61.54 and U.S.A with a rate of %-42.48.

At the same time, negative events took place in 2016 are reflected to hotel occupancy rates. When the statistics in relation with hotel occupancy rates are analyzed, Turkey experienced significant decreases in hotel occupancy rates by compared to Europe.

Tourism Sector of İstanbul

The objective of “Until the year of 2023, making Turkey an important destination in the first five countries with respect to number of tourists and tourism revenue in the international bazaar and making Turkey an international brand” takes its place among the tourism strategies. Definitely, İstanbul play a big role in the achievement of this objective.

Figure 4 The Number of Foreign Incoming Tourists to İstanbul (2010-2016), Source: İstanbul Directorate of Culture and Tourism

Since the year of 2000, while the number of incoming tourists to İstanbul increased by 219.6% until the year of 2009, a 7.3% decrease seen between the year 2009 and 2010. Recently, the reason for the number of tourists to İstanbul can be expressed by the travelling preferences of Middle East and Arabian tourists is İstanbul. A 26% decrease is seen in the number of foreign tourists in 2016 by compared to the year 2015 that is determined to be 9.203.987. The reasons of the sharp decrease in 2016 is explained to be the cancellation of planned travels and meetings because of security concerns with respect to terrorist attacks took place in Turkey and specifically in İstanbul.

Figure 5 Province Of Istanbul Hotel Occupancies and State Of Revenue (2015-2017), Source: TÜROB

By looking at the hotel occupancy rates in İstanbul, it can be observed that, while the occupancy rate is 55.3% in 2015, this rate decrease with a point of 9.6 by the end of 2017 when compared to 2015 and decreased to 45.7%. İstanbul experienced the most decrease among the Europe and tourism centers in the years of 2016 and 2017 in the decrease in hotel occupancy rates.

Tourism Sector of Antalya

Tourism industry of Turkey experienced a rapid development process until the middle of 1980s, Antalya which is an agriculture city become the most famous tourism rotes in the world with the incentives given after the year 1982, realizing its investment opportunities and natural potential. According to data presented by TUİK for the year 2015, separate from Antalya region, it has a margin of 30% in Turkey’s tourist potential.

As to the hotel occupancy rates of Antalya region, the occupancy rate is 37.5% in the year 2015 and although there is a 10.5 point increase is experienced at the end of the year 2017 by compared to 2015 with a percentage of 48%, it can be seen that there is a decrease experienced in the daily sold room prices.

The number of Incoming Tourists to Antalya, Source: Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Tourism databank

                   Antalya Occupancy and Income State (2015-2017), Source: TÜROB

Tourism of Antalya experienced a loss of tourist with a number of more than 3 million in the first 7 months period of 2016 and 52%of this loss is resulted from the decrease in Russia and 15.20% loss is resulted from Germany. In the year 2016, the bazaars that made progress in Antalya tourism are emerged to be Ukraine and Israel.

Figure 6 Russian Originated Incoming Tourists to Turkey, Source: Tourism databank, 2016

Both in the number of international incoming tourists to Turkey and to Antalya in specific, while Russia that is seen to be an important tourism resource, has a proportion of 77.74% of the number of tourists traveling to Antalya in the year 2015, this rate decreased to 56.16% in 2016. Together with the year 2016, with respect to decreasing number of Russian tourists, there is a decrease of 20.1% compared to January-April period of the year 2015 in real estate purchases and numbers decreased to 1363 compared to 1706.

Consequently, it can be observed that the changes in Turkish Tourism Sector generally affected by local/international situations and it draws attention that international relations is a significant influential element.