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In the resort of Marmaris, nestled between the turquoise waters and pine-covered mountains on the southwest coast of Turkey, the hotelier Mustafa Deliveli is preparing for a summer. He is worried about this summer. Will affect the town’s tourism industry.
He said that Deliveli’s Emre Hotel’s booking volume is 15% of June’s capacity, which is one of the “most important months” of the season when rooms are usually full. However, the surge in the spring coronavirus prompted Turkey’s three largest tourism markets, Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, to impose onerous travel restrictions-threatening an industry that provides millions of jobs and vital hard currency.
“For many years, we have experienced a crisis in the tourism industry, but this is unprecedented,” said Deliveli, who has given one-third of his employees leave and closed half of the hotels to cut costs. “Last year we stayed sober and had high hopes for this season. This is a big disappointment.”
The collapse of tourism will affect the wider economy.Turkey relies on foreign currency inflows from tourists to finance its foreign debt and current account deficit, which accounts for 5% of GDP, and to replenish inventory foreign exchange reserves Depleted to support a weak currency.
Since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired the governor of the central bank in March, travel cash has become more important, prompting foreign investors to sell a net US$1.8 billion in Turkish stocks and bonds.
To attract tourists, Erdogan ordered a nationwide blockade for most of May to contain the pandemic. Now, most tourists do not need to undergo PCR testing to detect the virus. The government’s “Safe Travel” program has prioritized vaccination for tourist workers and certified 10,000 hotels and other operators that comply with strict health standards. The number of Covid-19 cases reported daily has dropped from a record 63,000 in April to approximately 6,000.
Turkey has 5,000 miles of coastline and is scattered with Greek and Roman ruins. It was the sixth largest tourist destination in the world before the coronavirus outbreak. In 2019, it attracted 52 million tourists and 35 billion U.S. dollars in revenue. Due to last year’s pandemic, the global tourism industry was hit hard, the number of tourists in Turkey in 2020 has dropped by nearly 70% compared to the previous year.
The Ministry of Tourism’s goal is to receive 30 million tourists and 23 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2021, but this may be out of reach. The number of tourists in the first four months has decreased by a third compared to the same period last year.
“The pandemic has caused a seesaw in numbers [but] The tourism industry maintains an important position in Turkey’s balance of payments and provides 2 million jobs,” Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told the Financial Times.
Before the pandemic, tourism directly and indirectly accounted for 13% of GDP. Roger Kelly, an economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Istanbul, said that if there is no meaningful rebound this year, economic growth in 2021 may decrease by one percentage point.
Tourism revenue has also reduced Turkey’s trade deficit and supported the lira. The lira has depreciated 14% this year due to concerns that Erdogan’s pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates is fueling double-digit inflation.
“If the tourism industry picks up, life in Turkey will become easier. If not, it means that the economy will be in trouble again,” Kelly said. “This is not a magic wand, but it will relieve a lot of pressure on the Turkish economy.”
Deliveli said that in Marmaris, 9 out of 10 hotels were still closed at the end of May. Most people survived the 2020 crash through loans or cost cuts, but “it’s time to repay, and if things develop like last year, many operators will go bankrupt or be forced to sell”, he said.
Approximately 2.6 million Britons traveled to Turkey in 2019, usually accounting for about half of Deliveli’s guests. Since the British government requires immigrants from this country to stay in quarantine hotels and undergo PCR testing at their own expense, he has not booked one in the UK this season. Erdogan has said that he and Johnson will discuss tourism at the NATO summit next week. He also sent Ersoy to Moscow and Berlin to lobby to end their restrictions.
Germany sent 5 million tourists to Turkey in 2019, and the country stated that returnees no longer need to be quarantined if they are vaccinated or tested negative. Russia, Turkey’s largest source of tourists, has extended the ban on most flights between the two countries until June 21. “Once air traffic resumes, Turkey will usher in a peak because guests will not cancel reservations but postpone reservations,” Ersoy said.
But Bahattin Yucel, the former tourism minister, said that this season is “better than last year, and we must blame it on the failure to control the coronavirus”.
On a recent afternoon, a few tourists wandered among the huge ruins of Perg, a 3000-year-old archaeological site once ruled by Alexander the Great and decorated with exquisite mosaics.
Ali Cikla has “traveled the ancient roads of Perge thousands of times” in his 40 years as a tour guide. Since the pandemic hit, he has led only five teams, and his income has fallen by 90%. However, he is optimistic that the integration of Turkey’s sunshine, sea and history will prove irresistible.
“It may take a few years, but people will come back,” he said. “The pandemic will not last forever, but Perger will.”
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