UPDATE - Turkey: Tourism revenue stands at $2.4B in Q1

UPDATES WITH REMARKS FROM TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE MINISTER

By Yunus Girgin

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

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

"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 the 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 January-March, 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.

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoglu said despite the pandemic, Turkey ranked ninth in the world and third in Europe in air passengers last year, citing Airports Council International preliminary results.

Karaismailoglu stressed that Turkey had flights to 50 countries and 60 destinations in 2003, while the figures are currently 329 destinations in 127 countries.