Thursday, August 27, 2020
In Turkey, tourist arrivals have speeded up in July 2020 after resumption of flights with many countries.
Turkey the No. 6 tourist destination of the world welcomed almost 932,927 tourists in July, quadrupling the figures of the month before of 214,768, as per Culture and Tourism Ministry data on Monday.
Arrivals dropped almost 86% compared to around 6.6 million in July 2019, the data showed. In April, international visitors nearly disappeared when a partial lockdown was prevalent due to the virus outbreak.
From January through July, Turkey hosted 5.4 million foreign visitors, the data showed. The figure was down by 78% on an annual basis from 24.7 million in the January-July period of 2019 due to measures to stop the spread of COVID.
Initiations to curb the virus’ spread, focusing on people to stay at home and keeping away from most human contact, have affected the economy in an extremely bitter way especially the tourism and travel sectors. After February 2020, Turkey put off the tourism season to June and called off many events like fairs and expos.
In June, Turkey raised majority of its partial lockdown, and tourism facilities had reopened by implementing thorough measures to make sure safety from the virus.
New coronavirus cases since then have remained mostly stable as per the official data and rose above 1,200 in recent days.
Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, the Culture and Tourism Minister on Monday explained that he hoped 15 million tourists in 2020 and more than $11 billion in revenue this year as long as flights operate.
In 2019, Turkey greeted more than 45 million visitors, up from nearly 39.5 million in 2018.
Istanbul continued to be Turkey’s top tourist draw this January to July 2020, luring almost 50.07% of foreign visitors – around 2.7 million.
Tags: Turkey
Friday, April 26, 2024
Friday, April 26, 2024
Comments: