Turkey’s tourism revenue rises nearly 40 pct in third quarter

ANKARA

Turkey’s tourism revenue has shown strong recovery in the third quarter of the year after a tough period amid a series of problems, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed on Oct. 31.

In the third quarter of the year, the country’s tourism revenue rose to $11.4 billion with a year-on-year increase of 37.6 percent, according to TÜİK data.

With an ongoing rise in the number of foreign arrivals, especially from Russia, Turkey’s tourism income started to increase in the second quarter of the year despite a sharp decrease in hotel incomes compared to the previous years.

Although Turkey’s tourism revenue regressed to $3.4 billion in the first quarter of the year with a 17.1 percent year-on-year decrease, it rose to $5.4 billion with an 8.7 percent year-on-year increase in the second quarter.

Turkey’s tourism revenue declined steeply to $22.1 billion in 2016 with a nearly 30 percent year-on-year decrease.

The average expenditure of visitors stood at $684 per capita in the third quarter, according to TÜİK data.

In the third quarter, while the average expenditure of the foreigners was $634 per capita, the average expenditure of the Turkish citizens residing abroad was $900 per capita.

The number of visitors who left Turkey in the third quarter reached nearly 16.66 million, a 38.1-percent increase when compared to the same period last year.

While some 82.6 percent of visitors - 13.77 million - were foreign, the remaining 17.4 percent were Turkish citizens residing abroad.

The number of Turkish citizens visited abroad increased by 12.5 percent compared to same quarter of previous year and reached 2.5 million, TÜİK data also showed.

The expenditure was $621 per capita.