Antalya loses 4 million tourists over nine months of 2016

ANTALYA - Doğan News Agency

DHA Photo

The number of tourists visiting the Mediterranean resort of Antalya by air saw a 47 percent decrease in the first nine months of 2016 compared to last year, plummeting to 4.7 million, as Turkey’s tourist industry continues to struggle with a number of headwinds. 

The drop was largely due to sharp losses in the Russian and European markets amid a series of terror attacks, the failed July 15 coup attempt, and Turkey’s diplomatic crisis with Russia, which has recently been resolved. 
Antalya lost more than 4.1 million tourists in the January-September period of this year from the same period of 2015, according to data from the Antalya Airport. 

The biggest loss was seen in the Russian market, as the number of Russian tourists visiting the resort declined to 173,513 in the first nine months of the year from over 2.4 million in the same period of 2015. 
The number of German tourists visiting Antalya also declined to around 1.8 million in the same period, marking a 29.8 percent decrease from the same period of 2015. 

In the first nine months of the year, Antalya attracted around 3 million fewer Russians and Germans in total compared to the same period of 2015. 

The resort also experienced steep losses in the markets of Sweden, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Britain and Kazakhstan. 

Still, the number of Ukrainian tourists visiting Antalya hit 504,390 in the mentioned period, an increase of around 100 percent from the same period of 2015. Antalya also saw a rise in the number of tourists from Azerbaijan, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon.