Number of Russians visitors will not fall despite crisis
Posted by meb at March 20th, 2009
Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertuğrul Günay said on Wednesday that despite the ongoing global financial crisis, he expected no change in the number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey in 2009 compared to last year.
Speaking at a press conference held at the Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition (MITT), the minister said: “Relations between Turkey and Russia continue to grow in all fields. Tourism and cultural relations with Russia are developing in a positive direction.”
“Some 26.3 million tourists visited Turkey in 2008, and 2.8 million of them came from Russia. We plan to welcome more Russian tourists in the years to come,” he said. Noting that the government has allocated $10 million and the private sector $50 million to promote Turkey in Russia, Günay said they expected to make Turkey a destination for tourism 12 months a year. “We have projects to improve conference, golf, health, thermal and culture tourism in Turkey,” he added.
Turkey sees slight decline in vacation bookings from Russia
Hotel reservations from Russia to Turkey in January fell 20 percent compared to the same month in 2008, although Turkey had expected a decline of around 40 or 50 percent, a senior official from the Culture and Tourism Ministry said on Thursday.
Cumhur Güven Taşbaşı, the head of the ministry’s promotion department, said at the Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition (MITT) that there had not been a sharp fall in bookings from Europe for this summer despite the economic recession.
“Our biggest concern was a nearly 100 percent devaluation in Russia and Ukraine that came with the global economic downturn. We had expected a 40 or 50 percent decline in reservations from Russia, but now we see it is around 20 percent,” Taşbaşı said, adding that they expected an increase in bookings in the coming weeks.
source: Today’s Zaman
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