Turkey Sees Tourism Growth Despite Financial Crisis and Swine Flu

12 November 2009 | Turkey this year observed a growth in tourism, despite the global economic crisis and the swine flu epidemic, high-ranking representative of the Turkish culture and tourism ministry, İsmet Yılmaz, announced recently.

During a press conference at the World Travel Marklet 2009 in London, Yılmaz pointed out that the number of visitors to Turkey for the first nine months of 2009 has increased in comparison to the same period last year.

But As BalkanTravellers.com reported earlier this month, it is expected that country’s tourism revenue this year will be lower than that marked in 2008, despite the growth in visitors.

According to Yılmaz, cited by the Hürriyet newspaper, the reason why the global economic crisis has affected Turkey differently than the rest of the world is that the country offers an advantageous relation between quality and price, good customer service and a diversity of offers.

Although, according to the tourism ministry representative, Turkey only uses one per cent of its tourism potential, it stands among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of tourist visitors. The country, he stated, aims to diversify tourism and spreading it across all 12 months of the year.

According to the Zaman newspaper, Istanbul saw 6,399,000 tourists for the first 10 months of the year, a five per cent increase compared with the same period last year. Close to 6 million tourists came to the city by plane, while around 420,000 came by ships.