Pamukkale, which is the center of attention of tourists with its thermal waters, travertines, and historical buildings in Hierapolis Ancient City, is waiting to regain its vitality before the Covid-19 outbreak.
According to the statistics of visitors kept in Pamukkale since 2000, when the booths were established, the highest number of tourists was reached in 2019, when 2 million 580 thousand 245 tourists came.
Only 625 thousand 120 tourists visited the world-famous ruins in 2020 when the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic occurred.
In January 2021, 12 thousand 565 people visited Pamukkale, where 76 thousand 541 people were hosted in January 2020, where the impact of the epidemic in Turkey on tourism was recorded as “the highest number of tourists in January”.
Tourism professionals expect the region to regain vitality with the success of the vaccine studies developed for Covid-19.
“If there was no epidemic, the number of tourists would have exceeded 3 million”
Gazi Murat Sen, chairman of Denizli Touristic Hotel and Operators Association (DENTUROD), told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the epidemic affected Pamukkale to a great extent.
Stating that he believes that the number of tourists will increase with the warming of the weather, Sen continued as follows:
“If there was no virus last year, the number of tourists would have increased to over 3 million. We hope that we will reach much better numbers in tourism with the vaccine in 2021. Our aim is to reach the figures of 2019. Hopefully, after overcoming the epidemic, we aim to host 3 million local and foreign visitors in Pamukkale. We hope that those who come to see this unique beauty will experience a human flood in the travertines again. “
The number of people who have visited Pamukkale ruins in the last 21 years are as follows:
Years Number of visitors 2000 839.264 2001 1.107.214 2002 1.152.000 2003 999.650 2004 1.260.250 2005 1.358.500 2006 993.400 2007 1.153.410 2008 1.408.213 2009 1.323.961 2010 1.495.046 2011 1.713.695 2012 1.612.723 2013 1.699.772 2014 1.875.000 2015 1.710.094 2016 974.508 2017 1.523.912 2018 2.157.703 2019 2.580.245 2020 625.120
Source: AA / Translated by Irem Yildiz