Turkey earned $ 11.4 billion from tourism in the third quarter of this year, which is almost three times more than a year earlier, after the countries, including Russia and Ukraine, weakened restrictions on the COVID-19 trips.
Income increased from $ 4.04 billion in the third quarter of 2020, Turkish Statistical Institute reported on Thursday (Turkstat). The number of visitors has grown to 13.6 million from 5.6 million a year earlier.
Note that Turkey sought to increase revenues from tourism this year to help finance the current account deficit, weaken the sales pressure on the deposited LIRA and stimulate economic growth.
Revenues from tourism are still lagging behind the previous peaks – Turkey earned $ 14 billion in the third quarter of 2019, when it was visited by 21.6 million people. Some governments are still recommended to refrain from traveling to the country due to the high incidence of the virus.
At the same time, Russia, the largest supplier of tourists to Turkey, took off a ban on trips at the end of June. The United Kingdom has weakened restrictions for their citizens traveling to the country last month. Travelers from this country took the third place in numbers after Russia and Germany in 2019.
In the first nine months of this year, tourism revenues amounted to 16.8 billion dollars, and visitors – 20.3 million. This is compared with $ 8.1 billion and 11.2 million visitors for the same period of 2020.