Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday, February 22, at a press conference that their tourist sector was experiencing difficulties. This was reported by Reuters.
He spoke about the government’s plans to support tourism industry, which suffered greatly from the deterioration of relations between Turkey and Russia. Also the internal instability in the country has weighed in on the situation. Davutoglu has promised to allocate $ 87 million and take appropriate measures that will help travel companies to restructure their debts.
He also said that he hoped that Russian tourists would visit the country and their number would not decrease, despite tense relations between the countries.
The majority of tourists come to Turkey from Germany, but their number decreased sharply after 10 Germans had been killed in the terrorist attack in Istanbul on January 12.
Russia was the second country for the numbers of tourists in the Turkish resorts. On 8 February, the Department of culture and tourism of Antalya reported that in comparison to January 2015, the number of Russian tourists in Turkey has fallen 5,3 times.