UPDATE - Turkey: Tourism income jumps 22% to $14B in Q3

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey’s tourism income jumped by nearly a quarter this July-September to $14.03 billion, the country's statistical authority said on Thursday.

The country's tourism revenue soared 22% in the third quarter, up from $11.5 billion in the same period last year, TurkStat announced.

"While 82.1% of this income (excluding GSM roaming and marina service expenditures) was obtained from foreign visitors, 17.9% was obtained from citizens residing abroad," it said.

Individual expenditures constituted nearly $9.9 billion of the total tourism income in the three-month period, while some $4.1 billion of the revenues came from package tour expenditures, official figures showed.

The country welcomed some 21.6 million visitors in the same period, a 15% rise on a yearly basis -- 85.3% foreign tourists and 14.7% Turkish citizens living abroad.

TurkStat said visitors' average expenditures were $649 per capita, as foreign visitors spent $623 per capita and Turkish citizens spent $789.

Food and beverage took the lion share from visitors' expenses over the same period with around $2.66 billion -- foreigners spent almost $1.95 billion and Turkish visitors has a share of $713 million.

International transportation, clothes, accommodation, and domestic transportation followed the food and beverage item with $1.83 billion, $1.45 billion, $1.39 billion, and $1.07 billion, respectively.

The primary visiting purpose of foreigners was travel, entertainment, sports, and culture with 59% as their top accommodation choice was hotels/motels/pensions with 84.5 million overnights.

The primary travel reason for Turkish visitors living abroad was visiting relatives and friends with almost 44.5%, while they mostly preferred private houses during their trips in Turkey, around 21.7 million overnights.

The institute also said that Turkey's tourism expenditure -- which is the expenditure of Turkish citizens resident in Turkey and visiting abroad -- saw a 1.8% annual increase to $1.23 billion in the July-September period.

"In this quarter number of Turkish citizens visiting abroad increased by 30.2% compared to the same quarter of previous year," TurkStat said.

Around 2.95 million Turkish citizens traveled abroad and spent $417 per capita on average from July to September.

Meanwhile, in the first nine months of 2019, Turkey's tourism income totaled over $26.6 billion, up by 16.15% from $22.9 billion in the same period last year.

Foreigners' expenses constituted $22.2 billion of the total amount while Turkish visitors living abroad spent around $4.4 billion in the January-September period.

While the average expenditure of foreigners was $657, Turkish people spent averagely $463 in the same period.

Turkey's tourism expenditure also reached $3.37 billion over the same period, according to the official data.