According to statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, the travel and tourism industry is booming. This comes as a surprise in light of the many protests that have rocked the country in the recent past.
The tourism industry has reported income of $8.68 billion in the second quarter of 2013. In comparison to the second quarter of 2012, this is a 22.8% increase. 84.6% of this income was from foreign visitors while the rest was obtained from Turkish citizens living abroad.
On average, a foreign visitor spent $766 while a Turkish citizen living abroad spent $ 1,335 in Turkey. The average expenditure of a guest, regardless of their origin, was $825. The number of visitors leaving Turkey was recorded as 10.5 million, a 12.8% jump from the second quarter of last year.
During the first quarter of this year, Turkey's income from tourism was at $4.9billion. Thus, the income has almost doubled in the second quarter.
Tourists traveling to Turkey chose individual or package tours. Individual expenditures took up a greater percentage of the tourism income as compared to package tours. In total, the individual expenditures summed up to $6,465,783 while the package tours expenditure was at $2,211,601.
The number of foreign visitors traveling to Turkey was 9,519,922. On the other hand, Turkish citizens living abroad were 994,987, a small but noteworthy fraction of the foreign visitors in Turkey.
Compared to the second quarter of last year, 2012, the tourism expenditure of the second quarter of 2013 increased by 0.02%. The greater percentage of this expenditure was individual expenditure while the rest was spent on package tours.
During the second quarter of 2013, the number of Turkish citizens traveling abroad increased by 8.8% compared to the second quarter of last year. The recorded number of citizens traveling abroad was 1,835,515 during this period.
The average expenditure for the second quarter of the year 2013 was given as $701.