Turkish hoteliers were able to overcome the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and can now return to normal operating activities without dumping and reducing the quality of service. This statement was made by the Chairman of the Antalya Tourism Association (AKTOB) Erkan Yagci at the monthly meeting.
According to the expert, the winter season was marked by a significant revival of demand from the largest audience for Turkish resorts — European retirees, primarily German. In addition, in the summer season, Antalya was able to significantly increase the flow of tourists from Great Britain, Germany, Poland, and Bulgaria. It was able to almost completely compensate for the tourist flow lost due to the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“From now on, hotel rooms in Antalya will not be sold for 20-30 euros. We will provide quality, reliable, proven, and good service. This should be done in the future period. With this vision, we are preparing for the future,” said Erkan Yagci during the monthly lunch organized by AKTOB.
However, not all the tourism industry shares this confidence. According to some experts, the rapid recovery of the Turkish market was significantly related to external economic factors. In particular, the strict entry restrictions that have been in place for most of the summer season in Spain, Morocco, and Tunisia are traditional summer destinations for tourists from Western Europe. In part, this forced large European tour operators, such as TUI Group, to reorient their programs in more liberal directions in terms of sanitary policies, which led to Turkey’s gain. And the latter hastened to connect the increased indicators of inbound tourist flow with the successful work of its marketing.
“Many popular hotels are raising their prices for the upcoming season and have even rewritten their contract prices this summer. On the one hand, it is typical for the Turkish tourism business to inflate its price, but there are offers on the market even for 10 euros per room. Moreover, if there was no war, which caused a sharp decrease in the number of Russian tourists and no Ukrainians at all, hotel prices would have been even higher. Another thing is that then there would not be such expensive transportation, and the total cost of the tours would be lower in the end, – TBS Group founder Rashad Mamedov believes.