Turkey: 2020 domestic tourism spending down one-third

ANKARA

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Turkey's domestic tourism expenditures fell 34.1% year-on-year in 2020, the country's statistical authority said Thursday.

Residents spent some 32.2 billion Turkish liras ($4.6 billion) on domestic trips last year, including individual and package tour expenditures, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

"While 94.2% of domestic tourism expenditures were individual with some 30.3 billion lira ($4.3 billion), 5.8% were package tour expenditures with nearly 1.9 billion Turkish liras ($270 million)," TurkStat said.

Official figures showed domestic visitors made around 469 million overnight trips, while the average number of overnights was 10.9 and average expenditures per trip totaled some 753 Turkish liras ($107).

TurkStat said nearly 35.4 million residents made domestic trips over the same period.

The primary purpose of domestic trips was visiting relatives, accounting for a 69.1% share of total trips.

The number two trip purpose was travel, leisure, or vacation with 17.2%, and number three was health with 4.8%, TurkStat said.

Domestic visitors mostly stayed at the homes of a friend or relative, with 311.5 million overnight stays in 2020.

"Own house took second place with 112.7 million overnights and 'hotel' took third place with 18.8 million overnights," it noted.