Country’s first quarter tourism revenue down 11.4% year-on-year amid worldwide travel restrictions due to coronavirus
Turkey’s tourism income reached $4.1 billion in January-March, the country’s statistical authority announced Thursday.
The first quarter revenue fell 11.4% compared to same period last year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), amid worldwide travel restrictions due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“While 80.6% of this income (excluding GSM roaming and marina service expenditures) was obtained from foreign visitors, 19.4% was obtained from citizens resident abroad,” TurkStat said.
The number of departing visitors also slipped 15% to 5.6 million during the same period — 82.2% foreign and 17.8 representing Turkish citizens residing abroad.
TurkStat data revealed that average expenditure per capita was $727 from January to March.
It noted that 86.9% of the total tourism income came from individual expenditures — $3.56 billion — while package tour expenditures stood at $536 million during the same period.
Food and beverages took the lion share on tourism spending of the visitors with $962.5 million, followed by international transport $679 million in the first quarter.
“In this quarter, foreign visitors visited Turkey mostly for ‘travel, entertainment, sportive and cultural activities’ with 59.9%” TurkStat said.
Data also showed that some 1.74 million Turkish citizens visited abroad in the three month period, declining 13.6% on an annual basis.