The energy crisis in Turkey threatens local tourism not only with unbearable financial losses – the “balance” of tourism is so fragile that any power outage could turn tourists’ lives into hell. And such incidents with the power outage in 2022, and entire areas, have already begun. And if in the summer, at the height of the tourist season, Turkey starts to cut off electricity at resorts due to debts, the rest of tourists will turn into a real hell: air conditioners, swimming pools and other entertainment will not work, and restaurants will not be able to fully prepare food. This frightened the public at a meeting held by the Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Antalya (ANSIAD).
This is the situation in the not very familiar Ukrainian tourist region of Isparta – a city in western Turkey, just north of Antalya, known as the “lavender-pink paradise” and a place for active and ecological tourism. He was “covered” first. “The power outage in Isparta is a sign of a very serious crisis. In 2022, in Isparta, a city that we can’t even call a remote corner of Turkey, there was a power outage for four days, can you imagine? What is the situation of people? – said at the meeting the President of ANSİAD Akin Akinji.
The precedent is alarming – especially for hoteliers. Where there is nothing to pay for electricity, various “incidents” with electricity supply are possible. Meanwhile, any hotel left without electricity for at least a few hours – not to mention the days – is a real way to turn a tourist’s life into hell – air conditioning, pumps, kitchen, entertainment – all this lasts only with uninterrupted electricity supply .
Hotels will have to take money somewhere to keep everything going and work – added the chairman of the board of directors of Ceylan Operation Construction Tourism Investment Trade Inc Hassan Ali Ceylan. “There will be new costs,” he added. And their main burden will fall on Antalya, which “satisfies 40% of the tourist destinations offered by Turkey as a whole.”
“We see that although prices for all types of goods have risen, there are no prices in tourism. If this continues, then in 2022 tourism is facing a serious cost crisis. If there is no increase in tourism prices, the industry will have a turbulent period. By 2022, prices should increase by 15-18%. If prices do not rise – no matter how many tourists come to us, we will have the worst year in any case, “said Hassan Ali Ceylan.