Turkey's domestic tourism expenditures fall in Q2

By Cansu Dikme

ANKARA (AA) - Domestic tourism spending in Turkey dropped 67.1% on an annual basis in the second quarter of this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the country's statistical authority announced Wednesday.

Residents spent 3.6 billion Turkish liras ($515.6 million) on trips this April-June, including individual and package tour expenditures, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

"While 98% of domestic tourism expenditures were individual with 3.5 billion liras ($505 million), 2% were package tour expenditures with nearly 71.6 million Turkish liras ($10.6 million)," TurkStat said.

TurkStat data showed that 5.3 million residents had domestic trips from April to June, down from 15.7 million in the same period last year.

Domestic trips with one or more than one overnights, fell 69.1% year-on-year to nearly 6 million in the second quarter.

Domestic visitors made 76 million overnight trips while average number of overnights was 12.7 and average expenditures per trip totaled some 592 Turkish liras ($86.3).

The primary purpose of domestic trips was visiting relatives, accounting for a 73.9% share of total trips.

The secondary purpose of trip was travel, leisure, and vacation with 14.0% and the third was health with 5.5%, TurkStat said.

- First half figure

Turkey's domestic tourism expenditures also slipped 57.1% to 7.6 billion Turkish liras ($1.2 billion) in this January-June from the same period last year.