'3M British tourists expected to visit Turkey in 2018'

By Ahmet Bayram

IZMIR, Turkey (AA) - A record number of British tourists will visit Turkey in 2018, up 70 percent from last year, said the British ambassador to Turkey on Friday.

Dominick Chilcott, who is in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir for official talks, told Anadolu Agency that 3 million British tourists are expected to visit Turkey, according to figures based on projections from British tour operators.

"The tour operations tell us that advance bookings are up as much as 70 percent from last year. That is just the tour operators, and there are of course people who come individually as they make their own bookings or fly by themselves," Chilcott said.

Stating that last year only 1.7 million British tourists visited Turkey, Chilcott said: "So we think that 3 million is a pretty good estimate of what we can expect from this year. If we get 3 million, that would be a record."

According to the ambassador, there are of course some reasons "why many more British people are coming this year".

"I think one reason is that the Turkish security agencies have had a lot of success in keeping the terrorist threat under control," said Chilcott.

"I think the return of stability to Turkey has been helpful," he said.

Chilcott said that the U.K. also had some terrorist events last year, which he said means that people realized "the terrorism can happen anywhere and it is not safer to stay at home than to travel to other countries like Turkey. "

"So I think that gives people confidence as well," the ambassador added.