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Turkey ‘rebounds’ with hotel occupancy up 19% year-on-year

Turkish tourism revenue rebounded last year by 18.9% year-on-year as hotels cut rates, latest official figures show.

Input from tourism reached its peak in 2014 with a record-breaking $34 billion but it dropped drastically in the following two years after a series of terrorist attacks and a failed coup rocked the sector.

High profile security campaigns as well as branded media advertising help tourism start to recover in 2017.

Revenue for the full year was $26.3 billion, with $21.5 billion credited to independent travel while package tours made up the result by contributing $4.8 billion, according to the Turkish Statistical Institution (Turk Stat).

Foreign visitors spent the most amount of money on food, drink, and transport, closely followed by overnight accommodation – the majority staying in hotels and motels despite increased popularity of self-catering facilities.

TUROB, the hotel association of Turkey, is showing an 18% increase year-on-year in hotel occupancy rates.

Taking its statistics from STR Global, Turkey showed the highest growth among European countries by reaching 60.2%.

But TUROB pointed out that the average daily room rate fell by an average of 12%, therefore profits are not what they could be.

Insisting that any price increase should not scare away potential tourists, the association will be discussing the issue in the months to come.

Julian Walker, managing director of Turkish property agency Spot Blue which shared the figures, said: “This news is in line with expectations for 2018 that the Turkish tourism industry can bounce back to 2014 figures and achieve its 2023 goals to be one of the top visited destinations in the world.

“The flight market between the UK and Turkey is set to play a major part in this comeback after many UK airlines drastically increased their seat capacity.”

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