Last year, the service sector of the Turkish tourism sector brought in about 88,5 million dollars in daily income. Over the past 10 years, tourism has brought in almost 242 billion dollars in profit. The presence of foreign capital in the domestic market of Turkey also has an impact on this.
The share of income from the tourism sector is growing every year due to the fact that Türkiye attracts with the high quality of its infrastructure, as well as its history, climate, sunny weather and warm seas.
In 2013, revenues exceeded $30 billion for the first time
According to the information provided by the Turkish Statistical Society, last year, tourism revenues in Turkey exceeded the $30 billion mark for the first time, amounting to $32 billion 310 million 424 thousand. This figure for the income of the Turkish tourism sector last year allows us to conclude that on average, this industry brought in about $88,5 million daily. Thus, the inflow of foreign currency was about $3,7 million per hour. According to the data provided, over the past 10 years, from 2004 to 2013, Turkey was visited by more than 300 million tourists, which is more than 4 times the country's population. In total, tourism revenues in Turkey for the same period amounted to almost $242 billion.
In 2014, growth of 5-8 percent is expected
Chairman of the Turkish Hotel Industry Federation Osman Ayık gives a moderate assessment for the current year, and states that the tourism sector is expected to grow by 5-8%. Forecasts were also given regarding the exchange rate. Due to the rise in prices, the exchange rate may also rise, but this may cause certain difficulties in the domestic market. “Due to the onset of the holiday season, prices may rise, which may negatively affect the domestic market,” Osman Ayık said.
The president of the professional association of hotel managers, Ali Kızıldag, expressed the idea that he does not expect significant growth in the sector's indicators this year: in his opinion, the indicators may increase by no more than 5%.
Competing countries dump and equalize prices
Turkey's competitors such as Italy, Portugal and Spain have been conducting a serious promotional campaign to attract tourists to their market in recent years due to economic deficit, which has a negative impact on Turkey.
The same Ali Kızıldag expressed this opinion about the situation: “According to the opinion of European countries, Turkey has an advantage in terms of price, however, because of this, in recent years, countries competing with us in the tourism market have been reducing prices and approaching our prices, providing very serious competition. In 2012-2013, the percentage of tourists from Russia in Greece increased by 68%, in Spain this figure is approaching 40%. The signals that our tourism receives from countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal are very serious.”
