Turkey: Domestic tourism activities down in Q3

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Amid the worldwide collapse in tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic, domestic tourism spending in Turkey continued to fall in the third quarter of 2020 on a yearly basis, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Friday.

While the number of domestic visitors decreased by 28.7% in the July-September period, year-on-year, residents spent 18.86 billion Turkish liras ($2.6 billion), down 19.2% over the same period.

"The highest decreases were package tour expenditures with 39.4%, trip expenditures made before trip with 33.7% and clothing and giftware expenditures with 31.4% respectively," the institute said.

The first quarter data also showed that tourists took 21.7 million trips, decreasing 32% on an annual basis.

Domestic visitors made more than 255 million overnight trips while average number of overnights was 11.7 and average expenditures per trip totaled some 868 Turkish liras ($120.2).

The primary purpose of trips was visiting relatives, accounting for a 58.9% share, followed by travel, leisure, and holiday with 35.7%, and health with 2.4%.

Meanwhile, in the third quarter, the number of visitors and total expenses were more than overall figures during the first two quarters.