VIENNA

Nearly 850 firms from 80 countries attended the 2019 International Tourism Fair in the capital of Austria.

Vienna Culture and Publicity Consultancy opened a 150-square-meter wide stand on behalf of Turkey.

Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Turkish Airlines, as well as various hotels, tourism agencies and tour operators from Turkey attended the fair.

Asip Kaya, the Turkish Consul General in Vienna, told Anadolu Agency that the Vienna Tourism Fair is among the most important fairs in the world and almost 500,000 visitors attended the fair.

Kaya said: “300 thousand tourists from Austria visited our country last year. Actually this number was close to 500 thousand in 2015, however, due to political problems there was a decrease. Last year, there was a 23 percent increase. Hopefully this year the increase rate will rise even more.”

He called on the Turkish community living in Austria to visit the Turkish stand and added that the fair started very vividly, and he got the impression that far more people will attend the fair compared to last year.

Kaya stated that the attention to the Turkish stand can have a positive influence on the political relations between the two countries.

The fair will be open for four days.

* Dilan Pamuk contributed to this story in Ankara