Turkey tourism revenue rose by 103 percent year-on-year in 2021 and reached 24.48 billion U.S. dollars despite setbacks, the Turkish Statistical Institute said on Monday.
The country’s tourism income increased significantly in the fourth quarter last year, registering a 95 percent surge to 7.63 billion dollars, the institute said in a statement.
It added that personal expenditures constituted 19.68 billion dollars of income in 2021, while package tour expenditures earned 4.8 billion dollars.
Turkey’s tourism was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions last year, particularly when Russia halted all flights to Turkey for about three months due to the soaring daily cases in the country.
The Russian market was significantly important for Turkey’s coastal regions, especially for the Mediterranean province of Antalya.
In July and August, 2021, multiple massive wildfires that gripped the world-renowned tourism spots along the Aegean and the Mediterranean coasts of Turkey also stunted tourism revenues, forcing many travelers to cancel their plans.
Last year, Turkey was also struggling against the depreciation of the Turkish lira, which lost 44 percent of its value to the dollar.
Meanwhile, the country’s vaccination efforts against COVID-19 have been continuing at full pace, and more than 141 million vaccine doses have been administered to date.
The rate of double-vaccinated people aged 18 and above hit 84.38 percent as of Monday, according to the latest data released by the health ministry.
Turkey generated a total of 34.5 billion dollars in revenue after receiving 45 million tourists in 2019, but it suffered losses of over 70 percent in 2020 because of the pandemic.
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