The Turkish tourism sector expects the UK to exclude Turkey from the COVID-19 red list, which will help it recover from the pandemic, a series of fires and Germany’s recognition of Turkey as a high-risk country. Although tourism in Turkey has grown significantly since last year, and the number of foreign tourists arriving in July has quadrupled to 4.36 million, it is still well below pre-academic levels.
Many hotels in the southern Aegean region, which are heavily dependent on British tourists, could close by the end of August if Britain does not exclude Turkey from the red list, according to travel agents. The Turkish economy largely depends on foreign exchange earnings from tourists from Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom. While things are going well in the Russian market, Germany’s classification of Turkey as a high-risk country this month has hurt the industry.
Kaan Kavaloglu, head of the Limak Tourism Group, which owns four hotels in the southern resort of Antalya, said sales of travel packages to German tourists had slowed. – We do not see the cancellation of existing bookings, but new orders have slowed down. We hope that this decision will change in the near future, – Kavaloglu said.
Ulkay Atmaka, head of the Association of Professional Hotel Managers of Turkey, said that due to the reduction in the number of bookings in Germany and the closure of the Scandinavian market, the sector hopes for the UK, which in 2019 received more than 2.5 million guests.
“We expect the UK market to open this week,” Atmaka said. “We expect huge demand from the UK when the market opens.”
“Hotels in Marmaris, a popular tourist destination affected by forest fires this month, met with representatives of Turkish banks on Friday to discuss loan restructuring,” said Bulent Bulbulogli, president of the South Aegean Hoteliers Association.
According to him, many hotels may not repay their loans until 2023. Data from the Turkish banking regulator BDDK show that by the end of June, total hotel loans amounted to about 116 billion lira ($ 13.7 billion) and non-performing loans – 4.2 billion lira. Bulbuoglu said the sector was waiting for the opening of the British market “as a last resort”, adding that otherwise – 70%. Marmaris hotels will be closed until the end of August.