Turkey is due a tourism comeback for summer 2017 as holidaymakers “harden” to political events around the globe.
Thomas Cook’s director of retail and customer experience Kathryn Darbandi said there is still a high level of demand for Turkey from Cook customers as it offers “great value”.
Cook is the market leader in Turkey, which has seen visitor numbers drop after a failed political coup and the country’s proximity to Syria.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that UK visitor numbers to Turkey dropped to 272,000 in the second quarter of 2016, compared to 449,000 in the same period in 2015. Visitor numbers from the UK rose in the two previous years.
Darbandi is confident that traditional holiday resorts in Turkey are far away from the cities which are traditionally at the centre of the unrest.
She said: “We’ve got some fantastic holidays in Turkey and are the market leaders. Even though the demand has gone down it is one of the biggest selling destinations. It hasn’t fallen off the shelf and is still a huge product for us.
“It’s great value for money considering the standard of the product on offer. People are getting hardened to events in the world as well.”
She said typical British destinations – such as Marmaris, Bodrum, Ölüdeniz and Fethiye – are around ten hours from biggest city Istanbul by car.