Domestic tourism spending and travel increase

ANKARA

Domestic tourism spending increased by 84 percent, while the number of travelers rose by 9.5 percent in the second quarter of 2022 from a year ago, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

Domestic tourists spent 19.7 billion Turkish Liras in April-June, with package tour spending rising more than 90 percent year-on-year to 1.6 billion liras.

In the first quarter, domestic tourism spending stood at 12.2 billion liras, up 100 percent from the same period of 2021.

Individual tourism spending exhibited a 97.7 percent increase in the second quarter of 2022 compared with a year ago.

The average spending per trip, which was 1,008 liras in the second quarter of 2021, was 1,727 liras, up from 1,383 liras in the January-March period of this year.

Transport accounted for 37 percent of all expenditures, while the share of food and drink was 26.8 percent and accommodation made up 10.4 percent of domestic travelers’ spending.

Package tour spending at 8.2 percent was the next largest item and expenditures made before hitting the roads accounted for 0.9 percent of all spending.

Some 9.85 million people made trips in the second quarter, up 9.5 percent on an annual basis, while the number of trips increased by 7.3 percent from a year ago to 11.4 million.

The number of overnight stays, which was up 8.9 percent in the previous quarter, declined by 17 percent year-on-year to 74.2 million, data also showed.

The average number of overnight stays was 6.5, down from the previous quarter’s average of 7.7 and 8.4 in the second quarter of last year.

The primary purpose of trips travelers made in the second quarter was visiting relatives, accounting for a 63.6 percent share, followed by travel, leisure and holiday at 26.7 percent, and health-related travel at 3.4 percent.

The share of business meetings and conference-related trips was 1.1 percent.

Around 76 percent of those travelers stayed at the homes of their relatives or friends, while 8 percent stayed at hotels, and 8.4 percent at their own homes, according to TÜİK data.

Last year, domestic travelers made a total of 52.8 million trips, up 23.2 percent from 2020 with the number of overnight stays declining 2.2 percent to 45.9 million.

Their spending amounted to 58.1 billion liras in 2021, rising more than 80 percent from the previous year and package tour spending leaping 171 percent to 5.1 billion liras. Individual expenditures grew nearly 75 percent to 53 billion in 2021.