COME ONE, COME ALL
ince bottoming out in 2016, Turkey’s tourism sector has been surging. Global factors—a booming middle class and cheap airfare—combined with domestic factors— tourism diversity, safety, and a depreciated lira— have boosted the sector’s economic contribution to around 12% of GDP.
Through the first nine months of 2019, Turkey attracted 36.4 million visitors—a 14.5% rise from an already strong previous year. Arrivals were boosted by the opening of Istanbul’s new airport in April. In its current phase, the airport can handle 90 million passengers - a figure which will rise to 200 million after additional phases, making it the world’s largest airport.
Representative of the industry’s diversity, in that same nine-month period, Istanbul wasn’t even the most popular destination for tourists. Antalya, the Mediterranean resort city, attracted 12.6 million visitors compared to Istanbul’s 11.3 million. Following Antalya and Istanbul are a raft of regional tourist destinations, which have seen growth in line with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s diversification plan, which targets developing areas of tourism like gastronomy, health, educational, sports, faith, and the MICE segment.
The industry’s diversity extends to the visitor profile as well. While Germany and Russia hold
Sthe top two spots for foreign visitors, the resurgence of visitors since 2016 brought with it a growing share of Middle Eastern and Asian tourists. The UAE alone accounts for around 14% of visitors, and Iranians, Kuwaitis, and Qataris are all within the top seven visiting nationalities. In Asia, Chinese tourists have been flocking to Turkey as the number of direct flights from the mainland to Istanbul grows.
While airport arrivals are still led by Europeans, Istanbul’s numerous malls are better reflective of the changing tourist profile. When looking at tax-free spend figures for the first seven months of the year, GCC tourists accounted for 27% of total sales while Chinese tourists increased their tax-free purchases by 85%—bringing their share to 22% of total sales. Visitors from these regions have buoyed the luxury sector as domestic consumer demand has dwindled along with the lira’s depreciation.
The tourism industry’s performance has ramifications for the entire economy. Beyond its significant contributions to GDP and employment, the building of new hotels—where activity is expected to increase along with increased visitor figures—has partially offset the construction sector’s slowdown in the residential and infrastructure segments. ✖