Turkey: Tourism revenue stands at $2.4B in Q1

By Yunus Girgin

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's tourism income stood at $2.45 billion in January-March, the country's statistical authority announced Friday.

The first quarter revenue fell 40.2% compared to the same period last year amid worldwide travel restrictions due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

"While 68.8% of this income (excluding GSM roaming and marina service expenditures) was obtained from foreign visitors, 31.2% was obtained from citizens resident abroad," TurkStat said.

The number of departing visitors also dropped 53.9% to 2.6 million during the same period – 70.2% foreign and 29.8% Turkish citizens residing abroad.

TurkStat data revealed that average expenditure per capita was $943 from January to March.

It noted that almost 93.5% of the total tourism income came from individual expenditures – $2.29 billion – while package tour expenditures totaled $155 million during the same period.

Apart from the health expenditures – up 4.7%, all types of expenditure slipped compared to the same quarter of the previous year. In the first quarter, sports, education, culture expenditure, package tour expenditures, and tour services expenditure decreased 79.5%, 71.0% and 62.4%, respectively.

"In this quarter, foreign visitors visited Turkey mostly for 'travel, entertainment, sportive and cultural activities' with 54.9%," TurkStat said.

Data also showed that over 281,300 million Turkish citizens visited abroad in the three-month period, down 83.9% on an annual basis.