Antalya too costly for local tourists, Aegean preferred

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Five star hotels in Antalya have hiked their prices by 20 percent this year and early bookings by local tourists have dropped to 5 percent as locals turn to Aegean coast. DHA photo

Local tourists have made early bookings in hotels on Turkey’s Aegean coast rather than along the southern Mediterranean coast in Antalya, Turkey’s most popular tourist destination, after hotels there raised their prices by 20 percent this year, according to news portal Habertürk.

Early booking figures show that only 5 percent of local tourists have made bookings in Antalya this summer, said ETS Tourism Domestic Tour Manager Suat Özbek.

“In comparison, prices in the Aegean region are quite reasonable. Hotels in the Ayvalık and Fethiye band in the Aegean are already 45 percent booked for the summer season,” said Özbek to Habertürk.

If there is a lull in the number of foreign tourists from Europe and Russia Antalya hotels could face a serious shortage of customers, he said.

However, despite the drop in the number of early bookings for Antalya hotels, ETS tourism has witnessed a 19 percent increase in its overall bookings. This translates to 180,000 summer reservations, according to Özbek.

Jolly Tour Domestic Tourism Manager Can Mergen, meanwhile, says that social life in Turkey’s Aegean has become more attractive, which has been a factor in the increase of early reservations.

Separately, according to an announcement on May 4 in the Official Gazette, citizens of the Russian Federation will now be able to remain in Turkey for 60 days instead of 30 days without a visa until December 31, 2012.