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With uncertainty around the world, tourists
continue to head to safe havens of the Costa Del Sol
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TÜROB say that bookings for holidays in Turkey from German
tourists has dropped by 58% across the past 12 months, with holiday makers heading for Spain to enjoy the relative safety and sun.
Even though Turkish holiday resorts haven’t been hit by the same
terrorist attacks as Tunisia in 2015, there is still plenty of concern about
general security, with several attacks across the past 12 months in Istanbul, a
failed coup during last summer, and an government on the verge of becoming a
dictatorship.
Holidaymakers from Britain and Ireland have already been put
off, which boosted the Spanish tourism sector to record numbers as people began
to avoid Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, and Greece to a lesser degree.
The Turkish hotelier has begun to notice that the bookings
from Germany are also on the downswing. 2014 saw a peak of 3.9 million
holidaymakers from Germany. The figure dropped to less than 2.5 million last
year, and it’s expected numbers will fall again in 2017.
TÜROB prisdent Timur Bayindr commented that German bookings
in Spain are quite high, there has been a sharp decline in the Turkish and
Egyptian market. If there is a winner to be seen in this game then it is
undoubtedly Spain.
Bayindir added Turkey expects that arrivals from the other
EU nations – such as Spain, France, Belgium, and Austria – will continue to
fall. However, he does expect a potential increase in tourism from Russia,
Iran, and the Middle East.
The Germans have had a long-standing love of Spain,
especially Majora. German tourists also tend to be the biggest spenders and
stay longer than tourists from other European nations, making them great for
the Spanish tourism business.
