Istanbul – Turkey’s tourism industry is pinning its hopes on Britain removing it from a Covid-19 travel red list later this week to help it recover from the pandemic.
While Turkish tourism has seen a strong rebound from last year, with foreign visitor arrivals for July jumping fourfold to 4.36 million, it remains well below pre-pandemic levels.
Many hotels in the southern Aegean region, which rely heavily on British tourists, may close by the end of August if Britain does not remove Turkey from its red list, tourism officials say.
Turkey’s economy is heavily reliant on foreign currency revenues from Russian, German and British tourists. While the Russian market has performed well, Germany’s classification of Turkey as a high-risk country this month has hurt the sector.
