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On the southwest coast of Turkey, at the destination of the Marmaris resort, nestled between turquoise and pine-covered mountains, the Mustafa Deliveli Hotel is preparing for a summer that is fearful of sinking the town’s tourism business.
Bookings at Deliveli’s Emre Hotel are up 15 percent in capacity for June, one of the “most important months” of the season, when rooms are usually full, he said. But the rise of the spring coronavirus has prompted Russia, Germany and Britain (Turkey’s three largest tourism markets) to impose major travel restrictions, threatening a sector that offers millions of jobs and hard currencies.
“We’ve had crises in tourism over the years, but that’s unprecedented,” said Deliveli, who has passed a third of his staff and closed half of the hotel to reduce costs. “We kept our heads up last year and had high hopes for this season. It’s been awesome. “
The collapse of tourism would spread to the wider economy. Turkey relies on foreign currency income to finance foreign debt and to place the current account deficit at 5% of gross domestic product, as well as to replenish it. Forex reservations to strengthen the weak currency.
Tourism money has become even more critical since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fired the central bank governor in March, prompting foreign investors to throw $ 1.8 billion in net Turkish shares and bonds.
In an effort to attract visitors, Erdogan ordered an international shutdown to eliminate the pandemic during May. Most visitors are exempt from performing PCR tests to detect the virus, and the government’s “safe tourism” program has included tourism staff and certified 10,000 hotels and other operators that meet strict hygiene standards. Every day, Covid-19 cases numbered about 6,000 in April from 63,000 records.
Packed with 5,000 kilometers of coastline and the ruins of Greece and Rome, Turkey was the sixth most visited destination in the world before the outbreak of the coronavirus, attracting 52 million tourists and $ 35 billion in revenue in 2019. and revenues fell by almost 70% in 2020 than in the previous year.
The tourism ministry had 30 million tourists and $ 23 billion in revenue in 2021, but that may not be the case anymore, as a third fewer tourists arrived in the first four months than in the same period last year.
“The pandemic has caused a sawmill [but] tourism maintains a strong position on Turkey’s payroll and offers 2 million jobs, ”Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told FT.
Tourism, both directly and indirectly, accounted for 13% of GDP before the pandemic. Unless there is a significant rebound this year, economic growth in 2021 could be cut to one percentage point, said Roger Kelly, an economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Istanbul.
Tourism revenues also reduce Turkey’s trade deficit and are based on the lira, which has lost 14% of its value this year as pressure from Erdogan to cut interest rates on the central bank was boosting double-digit inflation.
“Turkey’s life would be much easier if tourism were to revive. If not, it means another year in the fight for the economy, “Kelly said.” It’s not a magic wand, but it would ease the pressure on the Turkish economy a lot. “
In Marmaris, nine of the 10 hotels were closed in late May, Deliveli said. Most survived the 2020 collapse through loans or cost cuts, but “now is the time to pay, and if things happen like last year, many operators will go bankrupt or be forced to sell,” he said.
In 2019 about 2.6 million Britons went to Turkey and usually received half of Deliveli’s guests. He has not booked a single booking in the UK this season, as the UK government has asked people from the country to stay in a quarantine hotel and perform a PCR test on their behalf. Erdogan has said he and Johnson will discuss tourism at a NATO summit next week and have also sent Ersoy to Moscow and Berlin to lobby for an end to the restrictions.
Germany, which sent 5 million tourists to Turkey in 2019, said those who return should not be quarantined if vaccinated or negative. Russia, Turkey’s largest tourism source, has extended its ban on most flights between the two countries until June 21. “When air traffic starts again, Turkey will be in a hurry because the guests are not canceling reservations, but they are delaying them,” Ersoy said.
Bahattin Yucel, the former tourism minister, said it was already too late for this season “to be better than last year, and we need to have no success in managing the coronavirus.”
Last evening, a few tourists walked through Perge, a 3,000-year-old archeological site, once adorned with magnificent mosaics ruled by Alexander the Great.
Ali Cikla has traveled “thousands of times” along Perge’s ancient paths as a driver for four decades. Since the pandemic occurred, it has managed only five groups and its income has dropped by 90 percent. However, it is very hard for Turkey not to confuse the sun, the sea and history.
“It may take a few years but people will come back,” he said. “The pandemic won’t last forever, but Perga will.”
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