Turkish domestic travel trends down

ANKARA

DHA photo

Turkish citizens spent around 80 million nights on vacation in the second quarter of the year, down from 87 million in the same period a year earlier, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK), which revealed Nov. 5 domestic travelers mostly chose to stay with friends or relatives rather than hotels. 

In the given period, 10.27 million residents made 80.13 million overnight trips. The average number of overnights per trip was 6.1 and the average expenditure was 336 Turkish Liras, according to the TÜİK data.

Domestic trips with one or more overnights decreased by 17 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, declining to 13.33 million trips. 

According to the number of overnights by type of accommodation, domestic visitors mostly stayed at the house of a friend or relative, with 59.58 million overnights, while their own homes took second place with 9.19 million overnights and hotels were third place with 6.33 million overnights, the TÜİK data said.

According to the TÜİK data, the primary purpose of domestic travel for Turkish citizens was visiting relatives, with 65 percent. 

The secondary purpose of travel was for leisure and holidays, with 17 percent, and third was for health or medical reasons, with 7.7 percent.

The domestic tourism expenditures data was composed of both individual expenditures and package tour expenditures. In the second quarter of the year, while 91.6 percent of domestic tourism expenditures were individual (4.9 billion liras), 8.4 percent was package tour expenditures (367.3 million liras).