The sharp decline in the main tourist markets supplying Turkish tourists – Ukrainian and Russian – has led to hotels in the tourist province of Antalya, especially in some “Russian” resorts, had to postpone their opening at least until May-June. In particular, according to Turkish media, such a situation, which the Turks describe as a “disaster”, has developed in Kemer.
Under normal circumstances, these hotels opened on April 1, but obviously they will not be able to fill – so the opening had to be postponed. According to Dincher Sarikaya, President of the Kemer Hotel Association (KETOB), due to the situation with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the opening of hotels “in attractive regions for Russians” has been postponed to May and June. He clarified that in the Kemer region alone there are 65 five-star and 350 four-star hotels with a capacity of at least 120,000 people. However, only 15 hotels are currently open in Kemer.
The situation is similar in other resorts. According to the representative of tourism in Antalya from the “ruling party” Recep Yavuz, now tourism in Antalya is opening “with great caution.” He confirmed that most of the “Russian” hotels in Kemer have not opened. A similar picture in the resort of Side – very few hotels. Network operators with 7-8 hotels have opened only 2-3 of them.
The mood of the “Europeans” is a little more optimistic. Levent Bekaroglu, the resort’s key manager for the global European market, said the Russians had competitors. “We expect in the near future clarity with the supply of Russian tourists, in particular, how the activities of Russian licensed airlines owned by Turkey will be organized.” But in any case, Europeans, he said, are ready to take revenge. “For some time, the Germans took first place among tourists coming to Antalya. Their record was 3 million in 2015. This season, the Germans will be in first place,”- said the Turkish expert.