Istanbul, July 29 () - The tension after the chain of events following ISIL attacks in the border region, along with the Russia crisis began to reflect on tourism data, as the main contributor to ease the current account balance of the country.
According to the data released by Ministry of Culture and Tourism, number of foreign visitors to Turkey fell by 4.89 percent to 4.12 million people in June. Thus, in the first part of the year, the number of foreign tourists fell by 2.25 percent to a number of 14.89 million people.
The data also reveals that number of tourists coming from Russia fell by over 25 percent in the first six months of the year, while regressing to 1.45 million people, against the 2014 data marking 2 million Russian tourists. In June, on the other hand, the number of decrease was only 19 percent.
Ministry data also shares the list of countries generating the highest number of tourists to Turkey.
Germany is registered as the leading country sending tourists to Turkey with 14.16 percent margin and 2.11 million people, while Russia is the second making of a margin of 9.77 and 1,45 million people, followed by United Kingdom as the third with 950 million visitors and 6.38 percent margin, in the first six months of 2015.
The Turkish Hotels Federation (TUROFED) has recently urged the beginning of an unpredictable process with regard to the tourism sector in Turkey, and referred to the tension after the Suruç massacre, and clashes with the PKK (Peoples’ Democratic Party) and ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) targets.
