This year, ten times fewer Russian tourists visited Turkey than in previous years. In the “high season” - even less.
President of the Russian Union of Tourism Industry Andrei Ignatiev stated this at a press conference in Moscow, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Ignatiev, due to the closure of borders associated with the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey opened to Russian tourists only in August, which significantly affected the tourist flow.
“The volume of flights to Turkey is much less than it was last year. In past years, six to seven million Russians flew to Turkey. According to this year’s data, from January to this month, a total of 770 thousand people flew to Turkey.
We took second place after Germany in visiting Turkey, because 780 thousand Germans flew there. But this is only 10% of what Russians flew there in previous years,” Ignatiev said.
“Moreover, of these 770 thousand, 450 are still winter, because August is a little over three hundred thousand. While 36-37 Russian airports flew to Turkey last year, this year there are only six.
It is clear that transport accessibility is limited, this greatly discounts the tourist flow as a whole,” added Sergei Tolchin, executive director of the Intourist tour operator.