Domestic tourism spending and travel increased in first quarter

ANKARA

Domestic tourism spending leaped by 100 percent, while the number of travelers rose by 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2022 from a year ago, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) have reported.

Domestic tourists spent 12.2 billion Turkish Liras in the January-March, with package tour spending soaring 163 percent year-on-year to 666 million liras.

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

The average spending per trip was 1,383 liras, whereas the corresponding figures were 1,074 liras in the final quarter of 2021 and only 732 liras in the first quarter of last year.

Transport accounted for 33.7 percent of all expenditures, while the share of food and drink was 29.8 percent and accommodation made up another 11 percent of travelers’ spending.

TÜİK also reported that 7.34 million people made trips in January-March this year, up 5.6 percent on an annual basis, while the number of trips grew by 6.1 percent in the first quarter from a year ago to 8.8 million.

The number of overnight stays rose by 8.9 percent to 67.6 million, data showed.

The primary purpose of trips the traveler made in the first quarter was visiting relatives, accounting for a 65.1 percent share, followed by travel, leisure and holiday at 18.5 percent, and health-related travel at 6.3 percent.

The share of business meetings and conference-related trips was 3.4 percent.

Some 76.3 percent of people stayed at the homes of their relatives or friends when traveling, while 6.8 percent stayed at hotels, and 10.7 percent at their own homes, according to TÜİK.

Strong air passenger traffic during Eid

Meanwhile, Transport Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu said 6.7 million people traveled by plane during the nine-day-long Eid al-Adha holiday.

Some 2.4 million domestic passengers and 4.2 million international passengers traveled between July 8 and 17, he said, noting that the country’s airports hosted 17,108 domestic and 26,700 international flights during the Eid holiday.

Istanbul Airport hosted 3,600 domestic and 9,764 international flights, with 562,000 domestic and 1.6 million international passengers, while 472,000 domestic and 461,000 international passengers went through Sabiha Gökçen, another airport in Istanbul, according to Karaismailoğlu.

The extended Eid holiday gave a strong boost to domestic tourism activity this year.

Most holidaymakers traveled to the resort towns on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, with hotel occupancy rates in those regions reaching up to 90 percent, Ferit Turgut, the head of the Mediterranean Region branch of TÜRSAB said earlier.