Turkey’s tourism income higher than previously thought: TÜİK

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

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The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) has updated the methodology it uses to produce tourism statistics, meaning that last year’s tourism revenue, previously calculated at $23.4 billion, was actually $29.3 billion, an increase of $5.9 billion.

The institution announced the revised tourism revenues and expenditures data for the period from 2001 to 2012 today.

Thanks to the revision, Turkey’s current account deficit has plummeted by over $5 billion. The net impact of the revision on deficit will be around $1.8 billion. Tourism expenditures, which previously been calculated at $4.1 billion, were revised up to $4.5 billion.

According to the revised tourism revenue, the average expenditure per capita also went up to $798, an increase of $161.

The institute reviewed tourism statistics and estimations of tourism revenues and tourism expenditures, following the footsteps of the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the European Statistics Office (Eurostat), which have both updated their systems in recent years.

In new calculation methodology, the international transport expenditures of visitors carried by the domestic firms, marina’s service charges paid by visitors and GSM roaming revenues has been included in the estimations of tourism revenues and expenses, according to the UN WTO and Eurostat’s recommendations.

Incoming and outgoing package tour expenditures have also been updated using the results of “Tour Operators Survey” conducted last year.