The rapid spread of Coronavirus in the world, the World Health Organization’s announcement of the situation as Pandemic and the fact that air transportation came to a halt had a negative impact on the tourism industry. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) predicted a 30 percent or more loss in the number of international tourists for 2020, while tourism revenues is predicted to fall at least $ 300 to $ 450 billion. The tourism sector professionals in Turkey are quite optimistic about the third and fourth quarter of this year, even though the sector in 2020 will have an income loss of 30-50 percent compared to last year.

LAST YEAR, 51.7 million tourists stayed in Turkey, reaching a total revenue of $ 34.5 billion. The number of tourists and revenue rose to an all-time high, while occupancy rates were the best in the last three years. The announcement at the end of the year was that 2020 would be the year of tourism in Turkey. However, due to the fact that Coronavirus could not be controlled in our country and on a global scale, the global recession, and continuation of the situation for air traffic coming to a halt had a negative impact in the tourism sector. At the start of the year, the 2020 target in Turkey was set as 58 million visitors and more than 40 billion dollars in tourism revenue. Today, according to the forecast about for the rest of 2020, the tourism sector will experience a revenue loss of around 15-20 billion dollars.

Although tourism professionals agree that tourism is the sector most affected by this crisis but almost all of them think that the sector that has the capacity to recover the fastest with the return of everything to normal will also be tourism.

THE INDUSTRY HAS STARTED THIS YEAR VERY WELL

In fact, Turkey had a good start to 2020 in terms of tourism industry. In the first two months of the year, the number of incoming visitors increased nearly 10 percent compared to 2019, a record year, while the number of incoming foreign visitors exceeded 3.5 million. But in March, due to the outbreak, bookings abroad were completely cut, followed by cancellations. All pre-bookings made in November December January February were lost. Tourism professionals advise people who want to travel to Turkey to “not to cancel their reservations, postpone it to a later date.” At this point, TÜRSAB also launched a campaign with the slogan “Don’t cancel your holiday, just delay it”.

One of the measures taken within the scope of stopping and controlling the spread of the outbreak was the closure of hotels. Many of the hotels are out of service even at the end of April, while open hotels are reserved for visitors who cannot travel to their country. In short, the first half of the year has been lost in terms of tourism, which directly and indirectly feeds 54 sectors. But tourism officials are hopeful about the second half. Some news from around the world feeds those hopes.

For example, very large hotel groups in China have started opening their hotels. In the coming period, life in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway are expected to start to return to normal with the softening of the measures taken in these countries and the opening of hotels with it will come on the agenda.

“CERTIFICATE WILL PROVIDE GREAT ADVANTAGE”

Sururi Çorabatır, the President of TUROFED (Turkey Hoteliers Federation) states that in case of we see a decrease by the means of the effects of the virus in late May, he anticipates a revival especially in domestic tourism and adds “With the opening of international air transport, in the 3rd quarter the mobility will and in the 4th and last quarter, we will compensate for the losses from 2nd quarter period thanks to our hotels that are open in all 12 months. Çorabatır believes that the introduction of foreign markets, which are foreseen to start their domestic market activities with Russia in late June, will allow the number of visitors to increase gradually. Çorabatır says: