UK visitor numbers to Turkey are up 12% for the first nine months of this year despite the high-profile failure of travel specialists to the destination.
In comparison international visitor numbers to Turkey were up 6%, to 23 million, for the same period this year, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism revealed at WTM on Monday.
International visitor figures to Turkey were up 3% for the same period in 2009 and reached 27 million for the whole of last year. This bucks a general downturn of 4% in global tourist arrivals reported by the World Tourism Organisation, which ranks Turkey as seventh in world tourist arrivals.
The increased UK visitor numbers for Turkey are despite the failure of Turkey-specialist Goldtrail Holidays, travel agency Sun4U and Kiss Flights this summer.
Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism deputy undersecretary responsible for tourism Ozgur Ozaslan said: “Any company which fails will have some kind of impact on the country it sends tourists to. However, Turkey acted with considerable maturity in this regard. None of the holidaymakers sent by Goldtrail were left in the cold.”
Mugla is the top destination for UK tourists but other regions are catching up, added Ozaslan. The number of holidaymakers to Mugla has increased by 15% year on year, while visitor numbers to Antalya have risen by 34% and to Izmir by 55%.
- More from World Travel Market at travelweekly.co.uk/wtm2010