Number of foreigners visiting Turkey down in February

By Fatih Erkan Dogan

ANKARA (AA) – The number of foreigners visiting Turkey slipped significantly in February compared with the same month last year, according to preliminary data from the Culture and Tourism Ministry on Thursday.

The number of foreign visitors declined to 1.159 million last month, down 6.51 percent compared with February 2016, the data shared at the ministry’s website revealed.

Tourism sector has been hit in Turkey recently due to rising geopolitical tensions in neighboring countries and terrorist incidents inside and outside of the country in addition to the defeated coup of July 15, 2016.

Despite overall tourism numbers witnessing a significant decline, Russian visitors rose by 95.58 percent from a year earlier after reconciliation steps from both sides post November 2015 jet crisis between Turkey and Russia.

Georgia topped the list of countries sending tourists to Turkey with 140,463 tourists. Iran and Bulgaria followed with 130,596 visitors and 106,026 visitors, respectively.

The largest annual growth was seen in Indonesian visitors, up 117.29 percent from a year earlier. Russians came in second with 95.58 percent increase.

The recovery in Russian tourist numbers is especially important since almost 10 percent of overall annual numbers were from Russia in recent years.

Tourism revenues is a very important instrument for Turkish economy as it struggles to keep the current account deficit under control and a shortage of foreign exchange currencies negatively affect the value of domestic currency.